The Shop at the Corner of Twilight
by IcelandGirl812
Summary: Welcome to The River Divot, a sporting and assorted goods store. Mr H. is the manager, Mr C. the assistant manager, and other various persons in employ. Please ignore any bickering workers or ones ignoring you to read strange letters. Happy shopping! AH
1. The River Divot

**A/N: Despite the fact that I have finally scrounged up enough balls to actually post my baby, I is still scurred shiteless. Eh, anyway. I would be remiss if I didn't thank the two lovely dears without whose friendship, help and encouragement I would have given up on this story long ago and also currently be residing in a mental institution. Cherolyn (iponeddyou) keeps me sane and off the cliff as well as being sweet enough to beta me and this bugger. Not to mention she keeps me in Rob pics. ;) I love you, darlin'! And Amber (Burrberry Bugsy) first, ****as well as many other times when I whined and whimpered about giving up****,**** demanded I continue bowing to Shopward and his needs; something which I will forever be grateful to her for. I still love you Twinkie, wherever you are ya little Houdini! Ahem, on with the story now?**

**Disclaimer: I am not Stephenie Meyer and I don't own or claim to own Twilight. I do, however, own a raspberry-filling Ghirardelli chocolate square that I'm about to eat.**

**

* * *

**

******* **Bella's POV**

I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel to the tune of an aimless beat as I waited for Jake to finish up in the bank. It was surprisingly crowded, judging by the parking lot, for a Thursday afternoon. Hopefully Jake would be able to find whatever long-ass named part he needed for his Volkswagen Rabbit soon so I could stop chauffeuring him around.

I mean, it's not that I didn't love my brother or anything, it just got old taxiing him around everywhere after a while. Taking him to this errand or that errand, dropping him off and picking him up at work, you never realized how lovely it was to have two cars until you only had one.

My tapping of a random beat that would for sure be the next hit pop-tune was interrupted by something distracting emerging from the bank.

You know the type. The ones that make you instantly perk up and become acutely aware of what your relationship status is, whether good or bad. You pass them while in the grocery store and glance back over your shoulder to watch them go, hoping you run across them in another aisle. Or they're standing in front of you in the coffee shop, and you're so consumed with staring (or undressing with your eyes) that you forget what you're going to order when the barista asks you.

_That_ was the type who'd just walked out of the bank. Right in front of my greedy little eyes. He was the kind of guy you wanted to jump in the middle of the street in broad daylight. Pleasantly tall, lean but not a twig, great hair, clothes that accentuated his attributes, and a _really_ nice face.

I leaned forward over the steering wheel a bit, being careful not to hit the horn, to get a better look at him. He was talking on the phone, and I found myself focused (but not in a perverted way, I swear) on the way his mouth formed words. He walked out from under the shadow of the bank, the little bit of extra light alerting me to the color of his great hair: not red but not brown either. It was almost as if he had an Irish mother yet not an Irish father.

An elderly woman exited right behind him, and I had to wonder why he didn't bother to hold the door open for her. That crumb of ire vanished though when he stopped a short ways away from the bank entrance. Apparently he was arguing with someone on his phone, but that was no matter to me. All I really cared about for the moment was the fact that I had more time to look him over.

I purposely unfocused my eyes from his mouth, my gaze traveling down before back up again. When I made it past his face and to his eyes, I was surprised to see them staring directly at me. We shared the kind of polite, vague smile that strangers do before he glanced away and began speaking quickly into his phone again.

The little old lady stopped by one of those Lincoln Town Cars that only senior citizens (and government agents on TV) seemed to have, attempting to juggle her cane, enormous purse, and the opening of the car door. It didn't work, seeing as how she dropped her purse _and_ cane. But she got the door open, at least.

I looked over at Hottie, wondering if he was going to help the poor lady in distress not ten feet in front of him. He didn't make any move, just continuing to talk and ignore the woman. My ogling changed to glaring.

_Of course_, I thought sourly. He was, after all, gorgeous. Which most likely gave him the idea that he could be a heartless, pompous ass and no one would dare question him because of how he looked.

Thoroughly pissed off now, I stomped out of my truck, slamming the door behind me, and approached the woman. I shoved the items that had fallen out of her purse back in and picked up her cane, helping her into the car before returning her things. She thanked me profusely, sounding and smelling like old lady. I just smiled and nodded, told her she was welcome, and gently closed the door.

As I turned to make my way back to my truck, I noticed Hottie's eyes on me. So, he could take enough time away from his phone call to stare at my ass, but he was far too busy to have helped the woman? What an asshole. Whether it was from seeing my scowl or realizing he'd been caught, I couldn't tell, but he quickly averted his gaze.

Still glowering, I rolled my eyes and climbed back into my truck just as Jacob did.

"Done?"

"Yeah," he answered with a smile I was immediately wary of. "What were you doing? Just now."

"Eh," I waved dismissively, "nothin'."

He seemed a bit disgruntled I wouldn't share with him, but changed the subject. "I brought you something."

I raised my eyebrows suspiciously at him. "What?"

One of his abnormally large hands (not really, I just liked to call them that and snicker to myself about it) came out from behind his back, curled into a fist around something.

"Do you want me to pry your hand open or...?"

He turned his hand over, opened his fist, and exposed a blue lollipop with a white smiley face printed on it.

I squealed like a pig just given free rein of a Dumpster. "Aw! Thanks Jake!" Cheap bank lollipops were one of my favorites. I leaned across the middle seat of my truck to hug him slightly, kissing his cheek as I pulled away.

"I knew you'd like it." He grinned at me. "Now why don't you tell me what you were just doing?"

"No."

"Why not?" he whined.

"Because I told you it was nothing."

He narrowed his eyes at me; unwavering, I stared defiantly back. Without warning he lunged at me, his hands grabbing my sides and under my arms, and proceeded to tickle me in a way that I could only guess he thought was ruthlessly.

"Jake!" I wheezed out, more strained by the laughter at how ridiculous he was than by the actual tickling. "You know I'm not ticklish!" Well, except in my feet if touched in _just_ the right way.

"Then why are you laughing?"

"Because you're absurd!"

Ignoring me, he continued "tickling" and soon we'd both dissolved into laughter.

* * *

I could clearly remember thinking,_ I have got to get out of here_. So I did. I got out of Newton's Grocers. Granted, I hadn't done it under optimum terms, but did how one escape someplace dreadful really matter in the grand scheme of life?

I felt so light, carefree and just plain jovial because of my freedom that I whistled on the way home. I actually whistled. Although, it wasn't a show tune, but I whistled nonetheless.

I finally made it home, walked into my apartment, and that's when it hit me (awareness can be such a bitch).

I didn't have a job.

I had no way to pay the rent when it came. I didn't have money to buy things to restock the fridge with. I had no money to buy the new socks I needed thanks to Jacob turning all mine a hideous mix of pink and light blue when he'd decided to do laundry.

How could I have been so stupid and irresponsible? I didn't have a large savings account or money hidden in the floorboards; I couldn't afford to be so careless as to quit my job. I had to find a new one, pronto. It was the only option I had.

I picked my keys up off the floor where they'd fallen during my revelation and hurried back out the door. It had begun to sprinkle, of course. This _was_ Forks after all. I brushed it off (metaphorically, of course) and carried on my way.

For a fleeting moment I considered retracing my steps to Newton's and begging for my job back. But...throwing a tantrum at the owner's son-slash-store's manager most likely meant I wouldn't get my job back. And even if, by some phenomenon, I _was_ rehired, I'd probably end up back at minimum wage doing all the crappy jobs I'd had to do when I first started. Not to mention it also meant absolutely no hope for further advancement; the Newtons didn't easily forget "wrongs" committed against them. Did I want to waste my time at a dead end, low-paying job?

Knowing the answer immediately, I stopped at a newspaper machine and inserted my fifty-cents. I thought it would be better to have the 'Help Wanted' ads with me in case there weren't signs in windows or anything. Not that I was really expecting much. Forks wasn't exactly the leader in job availability. I was, however, trying to keep a positive outlook.

I quickly sifted through all the 'Help Wanted' ads for Port Angeles and other nearby places that advertised in our newspaper, only being left with two options that fit my wanted criteria and if I didn't want to drive at least thirty miles each way everyday for work.

An RN needed to watch over an elderly woman, and a secretary with a degree in business. I wasn't, unfortunately, qualified for either.

_Dammit!_ When did Newton's Grocers become the only available place of work?

Somewhere else _had_ to be hiring. I couldn't go back to Newton's. Even if I'd have been there anyway if I hadn't finally cracked…I forced those thoughts away. _What's done is done. _Now I just had to find another job before I lost all my credibility at being an adult.

Ignoring the images flashing through my head of having to move back home with my parents, I resigned myself to hoping there were some places hiring that hadn't announced it in the newspaper.

To distract myself as I walked down the street, I thought back over my very first reply to my pen pal. Which sounded weird and hello-time-capsule-to-the-nineteen-fifties, but wasn't really all that weird if simply thought about it in the right way: snail-mail version of emails to a person you met not in an online chatroom, but through an ad in the Forks Times.

Okay, maybe it still sounded a bit weird. But I had better conversations with the faceless and real-name-less (to me at least) Greenheart than I did with most of the people I encountered on a weekly basis. We'd been corresponding for about a month now, but I could still easily recall the way I'd blanched at his first letter to me. His script had been so elegant. I remembered reading over his letter once more with my pen poised above my own paper, feeling intimidated by the gracefulness of his writing. Mine was usually sloppy, but compared to his it was pretty much just plain chicken scratch.

_I must say, Greenheart, I am more than slightly intimidated by your elegant yet casual scrawl. Despite what I told myself when I agreed to this, I am wondering and imagining what you look like now that I've seen the work of your hands and a pen. With such fierce, beautiful, rather poetic, and stylish grace with which you write, my imagination is going full blast. And it is not displeased. I did, however, agree not to talk physical looks, so I shall stop there with that._

_ I sincerely hope you can read my chicken scratch. Yes, I will confess to my writing being chicken scratch. At least when next to yours. If you can not decipher it, tell me so and I'll invest in a typewriter or computer. Although if you can't read my writing, you won't be able to read that I'm telling you to tell me you can't read it. A vicious circle I can think of no way out of, it seems._

_ Oh well. I'll move on from that and onto other, more pleasant subjects. I have to admit though, I'll be wondering throughout the entire length of this if you'll be able to make sense of it. Perhaps I should make a copy when I'm finished. That way if you __can't__ read it, I can buy myself a typewriter and type up the whole of this to resend. In my nervousness, I seem to be repeating myself. I've never done something like this before. I've hardly even ever talked to a stranger or sent a letter. Much less both at the same time._

_ As per your request in your letter and to get things started, I'll state a few of my favorite things so we can get to know one another. My favorite color is green. Particularly the green of spring. My favorite book is Wuthering Heights. I have no particular favorite band or musician. I'll listen to anything once. From classical to rap to country. Though I do find classical or jazz very soothing when needed, and anything with a good beat or lyrics that make you think suitable for every other occasion._

_ My favorite food varies depending on the season. In the winter, I adore a bread bowl filled with potato soup from this little-known bistro in downtown Port Angeles. In summer, it's the perfect steak, warm and soft yeast rolls, and pistachios courtesy of this unique-to-Washington-State restaurant just inside Seattle. For every other day or season, it's the oatmeal cookies my mother bakes. They remind me of the way my biological mother always used to smell. That faint hint of cinnamon and lilac perfume, if cookies can smell of perfume, that is. I'll explain about the mother-slash-biological mother as I'm sure you will probably be wondering._

_ My parents died when I was young, in a plane crash on the way to their second honeymoon in Mexico. According to their will, I was to be entrusted into the care of my father's best friend, and an overall good family friend. My grandmother contested this decision, claiming with her was the best place for me. For about six months they fought over me, tugging me this way and that, analyzing every word and sentence of my parents' last wish. I don't often care to remember that time of my childhood spent in court as it was pretty rough to deal with everything all at once. I'll sum it to the court finally siding with my parents' will, and me going to live with the friend and his family. It was the best decision, I know. No matter what she thought she wanted, I know my grandma wasn't up for the challenge of raising me. I don't think she ever forgave the friend, but we stayed partially in touch with her. I believe she's in a nursing home now._

_ The rest of my childhood with the friend and his family was far less exciting and dramatic than the beginning was. He and his wife had no qualms about taking me in, even though they already had three children and the friend was in a wheelchair. I eventually felt comfortable calling them 'mom' and 'dad', and now consider all of them my family. I see them about every weekend or so._

_ I find it hard to believe that I just spilled my entire life's story to you...I'm considering rummaging through some drawers in search of white-out. I've never physically met you, and I've only ever received one letter from you, yet I feel very safe with you. You seem very trustworthy to me. I really hope you don't turn out to be some sort of cannibalistic serial killer or something. I will feel as though velvet rope and a sign reading "Biggest Fool" will need to be erected around me and tourist visits offered if that type of thing happens with you. But then again, I could probably make quite a killing with such an attraction. We shall see._

_Oddly eager to receive your reply,_  
Belletrist

A smile adorned my face as I reminisced. I hadn't realized the almost liberating feeling I would get from talking to a strange man whom I'd never met and had no idea at all about what he looked like.

Truthfully, until I'd begun corresponding with Greenheart, I'd never really comprehended how much of our relationships with people were generally based on the physical.

I remembered the undiluted, borderline childish elation I'd had when his reply had come two days later. The knowledge that he'd written and sent his letter the same day he'd received mine certainly didn't weaken my excitement.

_Some people tell their life stories, whether they're sad or not, just to garner attention or sympathy. You don't strike me as that type of person, or the type that even wants sympathy and to be felt sorry for. You come off to me more as someone who detests it. So I'll say it now and not dwell on it too much in the future: I am truly sorry your early childhood was filled with so much drama and hurt, Belletrist. I can't imagine how hard a thing that must be to go through, especially at such a young age, and I'm grateful you trust me enough to have told me that. I promise I'm not a cannibalistic serial killer. Although, if I were one, I probably wouldn't admit it._

_ While we're on the subject of life stories, I might as well share my own. It seems only fair, too, considering you told me yours. My childhood was quite uneventful, my family average. Average car, average house, average spending income (at least when it came to the neighborhood in which we lived), average furnishings, etc._

_ We never had any pets, and I'm an only child, thus I was very much spoiled by my mother when I was younger. I was born in Chicago, my parents still live there. My father and I haven't been on the best of terms since high school when I decided to pursue my love of music rather than going into the military as my father wished. While he was disappointed, my mother was elated I'd chosen to follow my own path and own dreams. She and I have remained on good terms as we always were. I visit her occasionally and she visits me, but I still miss her dearly._

_ I now work in a non-descript store, have since I graduated from high school, as I continue on with my music. I haven't gotten very far in that respect beyond playing in several clubs on the weekends sometimes. I do honestly believe I like it better that way. I just want to play my music and have someone listen; I don't particularly care to be famous. A few other people have stated that they don't think I'm exactly suited for fame. And I must say I agree with them._

_ I also feel it necessary to inform you that you don't see your own writing very clearly. I think it's rather lovely, actually. There are some who it took quite a long while to perfect the art of their script, as is the case with me, and still others who spend a painstaking amount of time to make sure their handwriting is flawless. You are neither; your writing is natural and simply you. While it is a tad sloppy compared to something like calligraphy, I find its hasty sloppiness, as well as the reason I am imagining why you were being hasty, endearing._

_ I enjoy so many books it's hard for me to pick a favorite, but I must admit the classics such as Jane Austen and your favorite I do love to read due to their thought-provoking nature. And of the course the fact that I am a closet romantic. The same indecision goes for music. Though I do greatly enjoy, don't laugh, Debussy and Linkin Park. Far apart on the music spectrum, I know. But each of them speaks to me in an inexplicable way that just...makes me love them._

_ I think my favorite food would have to be...Fudgesicles. Is there anything more perfect than a popsicle and chocolate? I think not. I wish I had definitive, sophisticated, and mature favorite foods as you do, but alas, I do not. I am, however, now craving Fudgesicles and pistachios. I'm also jealous of your apparent oatmeal cookie stash. I never get oatmeal cookies unless they're from Mrs. Fields._

_ I noticed you did not mention a favorite movie. Is that because you can't possibly pick a favorite movie, or did it simply slip your mind? My favorite movie, I believe, would have to be Clue. Is there really any need for me to outline the reasons why? Once more, I think not._

_ If it is not too rude or inquiring, may I ask what you're reading now? Anything you'd recommend to me if I have not already read it? Anything you wish to discuss about whatever it is you're reading? I've always enjoyed hearing others' opinions on literature and cannot think of another person whose views I'd love to know more than yours._

_I do not find it odd that you are eager to receive my reply as I am just as eager to receive yours,_  
Greenheart

I was pulled sharply from my thoughts by the bright orange letters of a 'Help Wanted' sign standing in the window next to the door of a shop. I stepped farther back from the shop, angling my head up so that I could see the store's name affixed on the sign above the alcove that housed the door.

The River Divot.

_Odd name_, I thought to myself. And, if I was honest, I had no idea what a 'divot' was in the first place.

The display in the two windows on either side of the door didn't help me figure out what they sold. Or, more importantly, if I had enough knowledge to be able to sell what they sold. Stepping up to the door, I entered the store quietly, the bell above it startling me as it announced my presence.

"I'll be with you in one moment," a voice called out to, I presumed, me. I glanced around cursorily, but didn't see anyone. And, more notably, I didn't see anything that would need super specific skills to be able to sell or stock.

I walked farther into the store, lecturing myself on how to act and what to say when I inquired about the help they needed. A few aisles, if you could call them that, over and near a rack of clothes situated next to a shelf of something I didn't quite pay enough attention to to notice, a blonde-headed woman of average height stood talking to another figure.

The second figure was, I could tell even from behind, a man. He was dressed well, professionally, and I could see him talking to the woman in much the same way as his hand gestured to this and that. Pointing out, I assumed, things she might have been interested in or might have been persuaded to buy. By manner and attire I pegged him as the manager of the store.

_He had a nice back, nice shoulders, nice ass too_, I mused to myself. Just as I was scanning the rest of him and noting that the hair on the back of his head looked vaguely familiar, he and the woman turned around so he could indicate some item or other.

I would have liked to say that I didn't make any facial or audible indication of shock and surprise, but even I couldn't lie that well to myself.

He was the guy from last Friday at the bank. Hottie who was too self-absorbed and pompous to help a poor old woman. I simultaneously wanted to walk up to him and eat his lips, and walk out as I flipped him off. If ever there were a need for the term 'contrasting ideas'...

I shook my head, hoping to clear it. _You need a job, Bella!_ I pepped myself. _And so far it looks like this is about the only thing worth bothering to check into unless you're in the mood to see Mike Newton again everyday._

I cringed at merely the _idea_ of that.

Focusing back on the present instead of my own thoughts, I saw he hadn't noticed me yet and began to wonder if he would even remember me. Maybe if I turned around and bent over he'd recognize me. I almost snorted at myself before I remembered that wouldn't exactly be a great first impression to give a potential boss.

I cringed again at _that_ idea, him being my boss.

But...life wasn't always easy-peasy lemon-squeezy. And if working for a pompous jackass was what it took for me to not completely fail at being a responsible adult, than I would find a way to manage.

I retrained my attention on them, watching as Hottie touched Cookie's (cause she was blond and a blondie was a cookie and I was an idiot who gave strangers nicknames) arm and smiled at her as he gestured to something else. I couldn't make out their words from my position, but if anyone had asked me to bet on it, I would have bet all the money I had that his voice would be low and just deep enough to entice. While my temper continued to boil, he fixed a hand to the small of her back and led her to another aisle as he bent his tall frame closer to her and said something that made her giggle in that grating way most women thought was appealing.

Firmly annoyed and aggravated now, I ground my teeth together and stuffed my hands in the pockets of my jeans to keep from going over there and giving Hottie, who really needed a better-suited-to-his-personality name, a piece of my mind.

I mean, really. Blatantly flirting with a customer when you're supposed to be on the clock? When you're costing the owner money? Manager or not, it was wrong. And it was sick that he was spending time he should have been working in the store, working instead to get a woman to spend a little time in _his store_.

Under normal circumstances I might have laughed at my slightly sad and pathetic double entendre.

Hottie pointed Cookie, arms full of stuff I didn't bother to notice, toward the front of the store and the corner that held the cash register. I dimly realized a woman I didn't bother to notice either was now situated there, waiting for Cookie.

I stared straight at him, hoping I hid my anger and disgust well enough, as Hottie approached me. His smile remained the same only-faintly-detached politeness he'd had with Cookie, but his eyes, which I'd finally been close enough to him to see were an unfairly-bright green (probably contacts, I argued to my hormones), had gone cool.

"May I help you?" His words were polite, but the tone was the same as his eyes. Cool and just unfriendly enough to make me want to tell him to fuck off before I dashed away.

Instead, I stood my ground, sucked it up, and spoke in a forced-niceness voice I fervently hoped he wouldn't notice. "Yes, I was wondering about what sort of help you were wanting?" I gestured vaguely with my head back to where the 'Help Wanted' sign sat in the window.

"We don't need any help at this time. Thank you for your time." The words and tone were dismissive, but he didn't turn, and he seemed to be angry now for some reason I couldn't fathom.

"Well then why do you have a Help Wanted sign in your window?" _Cool it, Bella_, I chastised myself. _Sassiness and/or sarcasm will not help you in this instance. _

"That's a mistake. Someone just forgot to take it down. We don't need any help."

"I'd like to speak to the owner, if that's okay."

"It's not. And he's not here anyway."

I gritted my teeth at the total lack of enthusiasm and emotion in his voice. He was being rude by not being anything. And that sounded insane and ridiculous even to my own mind. Deciding I'd had enough of this shit, of him, of even wanting this stupid job in the first place, I let my sarcasm run free. "Well, if you suddenly get any openings, my name's Bella Swan. I'm in the book. Only Swan there."

Without waiting for an answer, I promptly turned around and strode back the way I'd come, careful to keep any sort of swing or shake out of my walk. The pompous jerk-off would probably have given me the job if I'd given him a little ass-wiggle.

So disgusted I could hardly hear myself breathing, I almost didn't hear the harried remark come from behind me, and it certainly took me a few moments to process what I'd heard. "Was that someone looking to be hired? You know since Maggie left we really need someone else. Excuse me! Miss!"

I turned around, a hand on the exit door, to see a man a few inches shorter than Hottie but several pounds heavier with a big, black mustache moving toward me in a way that instantly made me think the poor man was under a lot of stress.

"Excuse me, ma'am. Would you like to work here?" There was a no-nonsense, no-formalities air about him that I found I easily liked.

"Yes," I smiled, biting my bottom lip to keep from laughing in relief. "Yes I would."

"Then you're hired. Come back tomorrow a few minutes before nine a.m. so we can get you settled?"

I nodded eagerly, "Absolutely! I'll be here."

"Uhh…Good." The first touch of something other than determination graced his no-longer-as-stressed face. He whipped around quickly and motioned something to Hottie that had Hottie following him toward the back of the store and a door marked 'Employees Only'. "I think she'll be good here." Hottie made no comment. "Come on, Edward, we'd better make sure all that bubblegum is clean from Maggie's old locker."

I shifted quickly through the door, not wanting to hear anymore. Knowing Hottie's name was more than I'd ever cared to admit I wanted to know.

Relieved and happy now, I opened my arms out wide and took a turn on the sidewalk. But, of course, my arms hit two passerby who both squealed "Hey!"s and "Watch where you're going!"s at me as I almost fell flat on my back. I righted myself and gladly dumped the 'Help Wanted' sections of newspaper still in my hands into a nearby trash can.

I had a job. Or, well, at least I sort of did and hopefully for sure would by tomorrow afternoon.

The realization had me smiling a mile wide.

I had a job despite Hottie's, Edward's, I corrected myself, attempts to hinder me.

_That_ realization had me laughing (or cackling, depending on how you chose to hear it) like the crazy woman I was sure Hottie, Edward, I had to amend myself again, thought I was.

* * *

**A/N: I'm not sure how often updates will be. I have bits already written, but unfortunately everything concerning the beginning freaks me out and leaves me in need of a paper bag. Anyhoo…Hope you liked it? Yeah, that's a good parting line.**


	2. Meetings

**A/N: Soo...I meant to post this before I left to visit some relatives who are not granted home access to the wonderful acronym known as DSL, but I got sick and forgot. Patience is a virtue though, right?  
**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Stephenie Meyer's characters' names. But yay for me that I own a brand spanking new NM DVD!**

**

* * *

**

******* **Bella's POV**

Pants?

I looked down.

_Check_.

Shirt?

Another glance down, this time at my chest.

_Check_.

Deodorant?

I lifted an arm, sniffing.

_Check_.

Favorite set of matching panties and bra to ensure a secret feel of power?

I stuck a hand slightly in my dark jeans, snapping the waistband of my favorite panties, and then pulled on the neck of my shirt, Hello Kitty staring back up at me.

_Check_.

Comfortable yet slightly-nice shoes?

My gaze traveled down again, this time going past my pants and to my crossword-puzzle converse sneakers.

_Check_.

A last flick of my eyes to the mirror, to make certain non-apparel-wise I looked okay, and I headed toward the kitchen. Pouring myself a cup of coffee from the fresh pot on the counter and taking a slow sip, I smiled as my brain woke up all the way.

Sharp, sarcastic wit and the tongue to do it justice?

_Che-eh-eck_.

A sound that I definitely didn't make brought me out of my mental check-listing, and I turned away from the breakfast-foods-only cabinet to see what it was.

Jake, some long and white handkerchief thing in his hand, stood in the entrance to the kitchen, mock-sniffling and mock-wiping at imaginary tears in his eyes. The seriousness of the situation, the little bit that had still been hanging around, was completely trashed by his Smurf pajama pants.

"My little baby is flying the coop."

I rolled my eyes. "How many years is it gonna take before you finally accept the fact that I. Am. _Older_ _than you_!"

Crossing the few feet separating us, he patted me on the head like a dog or something. "Someone so short shouldn't get to be the older one."

"Hey! I'm 5'5", buddy!"

He gave me a look.

"Okay, _fine_! I'm 5'4". But in the right shoes it's 5'5"! And what about Estelle Getty? She was short yet old. Or that short lady on that undercover detectives show in L.A.? She's old too."

"Excuses excuses..." He stuffed the handkerchief in a pocket of his Smurf pants.

"Oh, and what was up with the fake watershow? You _do _realize this is not my first job, right? That, in fact, I had another job just the other day?"

"Yes, but this job is a new beginning. Or at least it feels that way." I opened my mouth, about to coo 'awww' at his surprising sweetness. "Plus, this job doesn't have Mike Newton."

I narrowed my eyes, all 'aww'ness gone. "You just _had_ to bring that up, didn't you?" I might not have had such a problem with Mike Newton had it not been for all the merciless teasing I received thanks to him.

He shrugged as his only response, grinning widely.

"I gotta go." I grabbed a granola bar from the breakfast-foods-only cabinet, planning to eat it on the way. "The place is only a couple blocks from here, but I don't want to risk being late."

"Be good!" Jake called from behind me as I opened the door.

"Aren't I always?"

* * *

"I'm Susan," she held out her hand to me. "But you can just call me Sue." Despite her slightly fierce-looking features accentuated by the tight bun her dirty blond hair was pulled into, her smile was warm and gentle.

"Bella," I offered as we shook.

The man, who I recognized as the one who'd given me this job opportunity yesterday, standing beside her in the oxford shirt and slacks with the receding hairline yet full mustache pushed his hand toward mine too. "Charles Higginbotham." I wondered if it'd taken him years of practice to say that last name without a giggle or grimace. I almost didn't hold back the former.

Sue slapped him on the shoulder. "You know everyone calls you Charlie, and you prefer it that way. Stop trying to scare the poor girl or kill her from laughter. She just got here."

To my surprise, Charles, uh, Charlie, chuckled. I stared for a few seconds, in awe of how easy and natural this place seemed.

Nothing at all like the tenseness of Newton's Grocers. Tenseness that arose mostly from the fact that Karen Newton always dressed inappropriately for a grown woman at a grocery store, and it caught the attention of the male customers, causing a tense and unpleasantly sexual atmosphere. I shuddered lightly from the memory. It was made all the more disgusting by the fact that Jerry Newton knew of it and approved. Sometimes even going so far as to encourage it. _Those_ were conversations I'd never even wanted to know existed.

I was snapped out of my thoughts by something crashing in to me and nearly knocking me to the floor as it attempted a hug.

"Whoa, whoa, Alice. Tone it down a bit," a comforting voice laughed, and the crashing thing was lifted away, allowing me to regain my balance.

Once accomplishing that, I turned to where the voice had come from. A tall figure with a mop of blond, shaggy, surfer-hair stood there with an easy smile adorning his face.

I scanned down his body at least a good foot before I saw the other figure. A very short girl, with cropped, blackish-brownish hair layered nicely to fit her face and ending in neat points, bounced on the balls of her feet beside Surfer Head. I had to wonder if she was on something; she just looked so..._perky_. I'd never seen anyone with such a wide, truly happy and excited smile on their face. At least not anyone who was standing there looking at nothing but an awkward me.

"Bella," Sue spoke, "this is—"

"Alice!" Mini Girl piped in impatiently. "And this is Jasper," she pointed a thumb to her left, indicating Surfer Head. "I'm so glad to meet you, Bella! I overheard Charlie mentioning you. I've been excited to meet you! It'll be so nice to have another girl here!"

"Hey!" Sue inputted in mock indignation.

The gnome's, er, Alice's laugh echoed around like a doorbell. "No offense, Sue," she laughed again. "Well, Bella," she patted my arm, "I'm sure we'll get along great as long as you don't call me," her voice had lowered and darkened some as she began counting off on her fingers, "pixie, sprite, pygmy, or fairy. I had enough of that shit in high school."

"Alice! Language!" Sue admonished with a poorly concealed laugh.

Alice just grinned at her, patting my arm again before she began walking away. "I've probably scared you enough for today, Bella. I'll get back to work and let you get settled." Despite her seemingly perpetual cheerfulness and slight bi-polar nature, I already liked her. But then again, I always did fall for people too easily, even if I never admitted it to them.

I watched as she flounced over to a customer making their way to the register and could make out every word of their conversation even though I was on the other side of the store.

"Is she on something?" I whispered to Surfer Head, uh, Jasper. Maybe this store had bad acoustics, and voices carried.

"Surprisingly, no."

"Well then why is she so damn..._chipper_?" I sounded bitter to my own ears. "And then she turned dark without warning!"

Jasper chuckled lowly. "That's just...Alice. You get used to it," he grinned at me. "Eventually. Though she won't mention her biggest pet peeve, the nickname thing, again unless you call her one of them." He chuckled quietly once more before walking off without another word. I already liked him too. He seemed very laid back, in a good and soothing way.

Charlie had since retreated to, what I presumed was, his office. But Sue still stood in front of me, still smiling in a friendly and warm manner. She wrapped an arm tentatively around my shoulders. "Would you like something resembling a tour, dear?"

I nodded with a hesitant smile and brushed off the uneasiness of being touched by a virtual stranger. It's not that I was against human contact or anything, I just needed a moment or two to get myself acquainted with it.

Sue pointed out places and things and told me little tidbits of information on how things worked. She really was very sweet. Nearing the end of her tour, I finally found the courage to ask something that'd been on my mind since I first arrived. "Sue?"

She turned to look at me. "Yes?"

"Where's um..." I gulped, "Edward?" I couldn't believe how small and afraid my voice sounded. I shouldn't have been allowing him to scare me! Especially not since his rudeness had been completely unwarranted.

Sue eyed me questioningly. "He comes in later...Any particular reason why you ask?" She had a hopeful gleam to her eyes now. Ohh no. I'm not wondering about _that_, Sue. I laughed to myself at what her eyes suggested.

"He was just..." I tried to think of the right word for his behavior toward me.

"Just..." she prompted.

"Just kind of rude to me for no reason yesterday. I hadn't even said one word to him yet, and he was rude..." I bit my lip as I trailed off, remembering Edward's less-than-nice attitude toward me.

Sue squeezed my shoulders in a comforting way. "Oh honey, that's just Edward." She laughed at how absurd that sounded. Or at least that's what I imagined she laughed at. "He can sometimes be aloof, temperamental, and moody. But he does his job well. Very well." She smiled to some thought in her head while I muttered in my own head that he was probably only so good at his job because he flirted with anything with boobs and no penis. Hell, for all I knew he flirted _with_ the penis-bearers too.

"You'll get used to him eventually. Or you'll kill him," she laughed once again. "You'll get used to Alice's energetic and cheery attitude; Charlie's indecisiveness; Jasper's calming personality and accent that peeks its head out at times; Emmett's, you'll meet him later, jokes; and even my mother-hen tendencies too."

Smile never faltering, Sue led me over to Alice so she could show me the ropes on stocking. Something easy to start with, Sue had noted.

Once you realized this _was_ Alice being normal and not her taking one too many 'happy pills', she was very easy to get along with. We talked amicably as she tutored me in the way of stocking, me taking care to avoid referring to her as any synonym for pixie. Although Alice enjoyed to talk, _a lot_, she didn't completely and wholly dominate a conversation. It was refreshing not to have to rack my brain for something to say; she kept our chatter flowing easily and freely.

Even with Alice and learning how to stock as distractions though, I couldn't help the part of my brain that dreaded when Edward would arrive. I was pretty sure his opinion of me hadn't changed since yesterday. But now that I had the job, or at least was well on my way to officially having it, I resolved to let myself give as good as I got if he decided to be rude to me again.

I was well into my stocking lesson when a little bell jingled from somewhere, startling me. Alice laughed, "It's just the customer bell, Bella." She laughed again at, I assumed, her little joke. "Don't worry."

But there was plenty of cause to worry seeing as how _Edward_, in my head I sneered the name, had just swaggered him and his jackass self in.

"Morning, Edward!" Alice called from our post on the opposite corner of where the cash register was.

He only nodded at her and continued on his way toward the Employee Only room.

"Huh. Weird," I heard Alice murmur from beside me, and forced myself to focus back on her. "So anyway," she continued, "do you like it here so far?"

"Um...I've only been here an hour..."

"Mmhmm," she nodded at me eagerly, as if I had a lot more to say than that.

"Uh...Sue's nice?"

Her bottom lip started to jut out as her eyes started to widen. "What about me, Bella?"

"Oh! I—You're nice too!"

She laughed, "Why thank you Bella."

Confused, I turned back to the stocking. "Does Edward always come in later than everyone else?"

"It depends." I could hear the avoidance in her voice, as if she were keeping something back but didn't want to let on that she was. And, before I could nip the feelings where they grew, it hurt that she didn't trust me enough to say whatever she was holding back. At this point I'd have probably spilled every little detail of my life to her. And I'd only known her less than two hours. "Sometimes he's here super early and before everyone else, and sometimes he's not."

"Oh. Okay." I decided to let it go. He was probably up late last night having perverted sex games with blow-up asses anyway.

* * *

It was halfway through the day, and so far I had managed to completely avoid Edward. Or he had managed to completely avoid me. The latter had me narrowing my eyes mentally, while the former had me taking a celebratory bite of my bologna and provolone on wheat.

The store didn't actually close for lunch, so everyone took lunch breaks in shifts. Jasper had gone out for his, leaving me sitting at the tiny, corkboard-like break room table with Charlie.

"Bella?"

I looked up from my unnecessarily thorough examination of my miniature bag of Fritos. "Hmm? Yeah? Er...Sir?" _Way to fumble, Bella. Jeez._

Charlie chuckled quietly, though the sound came off as nervous. "So...do you like it here?"

"Yeah, I do." I smiled at him, wondering where in the hell he was going with this.

"Great!" I instinctually flinched back from his enthusiasm, startled. "You're _officially_ hired then!"

My jaw dropped. Or at least I supposed it did. I wasn't really paying attention to such silly things as the actions of my jaw. But when people are surprised, their jaws tend to drop. Right?

"You do, um, want to be officially hired, right?"

Charlie's unsure voice brought my out of my shock-induced stupor. "Oh yes! I definitely do!"

"Well then," he shifted what looked like uncomfortably in his chair. "Good."

I considered getting up to hug him, actually got so far as pushing slightly away from the table, but then I thought better of it. I liked the people here, the last thing I wanted was to overstep any boundaries.

Charlie glanced at his watch, saying, "We'll talk about all the specifics later." At my nod he got up and walked back out into the main part of the store.

I knew I was the reason he'd left, that I'd somehow made him feel awkward, but it couldn't bring down my happiness at the moment.

Ten minutes and one full stomach later, as I stood shifting awkwardly from foot to foot, I had to marvel at how stubborn people could be. Despite the fact that I'd worked in a grocery store previous to this, I was still surprised when the customer I'd intended to help had brushed off my offer of help with a curt "No. I can find what I need on my own."

My eyes traveled to Alice, hoping she would give me some task to do, but she was busy chatting with the customer currently being rung up. Edward was precisely where he'd been on my store-perusal when I'd finished my lunch break: across the store restocking some shelves. Charlie had yet to come back out of his office, where he'd gone after our talk at lunch. Jasper was curiously nowhere to be seen. As was Sue, I noted on another scan around the store.

A disgusting picture appeared unbidden in my mind at the realization of the missing pair. _Missing two_, I corrected to myself. _Not pair. Just two random people who simply happen to be working in parts of the store not in my sight at the moment._

I shivered and valiantly strived to dispose of the unwelcome and rather disturbing thoughts. I succeeded. For the most part. If you didn't count that tiny little niggling you could never chase away when you were trying to.

I continued shuffling my feet, unfortunately realizing I now had nothing to do but what I didn't exactly want to do. Resigned, I slowly began a roundabout path toward where Edward stocked, not really dragging my feet but certainly not skipping. I figured the longer it took me to get to my fate, the better off I'd be.

Chicken clucks, and whatever other noises chickens made, sounded abruptly in my head, making me scowl.

_Always leave it to your own mind to fuck with you the best..._

By the time I, my clucking brain, and my slow pace made it even close to Edward's position, Sue had reappeared. I happily observed that she looked the same as she had all day; no ruffled hair, smeared makeup, unbuttoned or mis-buttoned clothes.

"...aren't polite," I heard Sue saying as I neared ever closer to my restocking-with-Edward doom, "I swear I won't hesitate to grab a wooden spoon and beat some manners into you! Starting with that pretty little behind Alice says you favor so much."

I only just barely contained my snickers (read: embarrassingly loud guffaws) at Sue's...scolding. Threat? Disciplinary action? Whatever you wanted to call it.

One thing was for certain, this was most definitely an odd unit I'd somehow fumbled my way into. Almost like a strange family-ish dynamic.

_Frodo, we're not in Newton's anymore._

I watched, entranced despite my attempts to look away, as Edward narrowed his eyes but didn't respond with anything other than a nod of agreement. Or obedience. I nearly snickered again.

When both Sue and Edward's eyes flicked to me, I could only figure that my sniggers hadn't been as well concealed as I'd thought.

_Damn traitorous mouth._

I almost waved, but then realized how stupid that'd look, so instead just stood there. Stupidly. Another part of Bella-the-social-nitwit almost blurted out a "Well, erm, this is awkward" paired with a nervous laugh.

It wasn't until Edward had come significantly closer to encroaching on Bella's-personal-space-no-trespassing-without-permission, that I comprehended my attempts at chipping away on the old Ice Block of Awkward weren't needed.

_This is nice. Leave the hard first-interactions work to other people so I don't have to do any of it. I could get spoiled on this..._

And it wasn't until Edward stopped in front of me that I noticed Sue had been poking him in the back, trying to be stealthy about it, I assumed. She slunk casually and quietly away without addressing me, sneaking one last glance back, eyes locking with Edward's briefly and communicating some silent message.

I couldn't be sure, but I thought he spoke through gritted teeth, "I'm Edward."

"Classic," I murmured without thinking as we shook hands.

"Pardon?"

"Nothing. I'm Bella." His hand looked a bit bony, but it felt very muscled.

"I know."

"You wha—but how?" Great first impression as an official employee, Bella.

His voice pitched higher, "'Well, if you suddenly get any openings, my name's Bella Swan. I'm in the book. Only Swan there.'" He raised his eyebrows as he finished, somehow managing to look cocky and bored at the same time.

It hadn't escaped my notice that he'd left out all the sarcasm I'd had dripping from my voice when I'd said that sentence. But I let it go like the mature woman I was. "Oh." Since he was still shaking my hand, I felt the need to speak up. "Um, are you ever going to let me have my hand back?"

He dropped my hand as if I'd just burned him.

"Shouldn't you be getting back to work instead of mingling around on Charlie's dollar?"

My mouth dropped open slightly. "I—"

Turning on his heel, he strode away before I could finish my sentence, and I couldn't help but wish that Sue had stuck around to be sure her wooden spoon method wasn't needed.

"Asshole," I muttered under my breath.

"Hey Bella!" All but beaming Alice bounced, I swear that was the only way you could describe how she approached, up to me, coming back from the cash register. "I see you met Edward."

"It wasn't the first time the donkey has crossed my path."

She stared at me a second. "Donkey?"

"Clean way to say jackass."

"Ohh," she giggled in approval. Or what I guessed was approval. "I think I like you, Bella. I think I like you very much."

"Uh...thanks?"

She showed her teeth in a wide smile.

"Um, look Alice, I like you and all too, but...er...How do I say this?" I mumbled what I hoped was quietly to myself. "I like to make out with guys," I finally blurted out.

"Oh...kay? Uh, thanks for announcing that, Bella?"

"No no, I mean, uh, er. Shit!" She laughed again, enjoying my embarrassment and my squirming, I assumed.

"Just spit it out, hon. Seriously, you just told me you like to make out with guys, whatever else you're trying to say can't be that bad. Unless you're going to tell me you like to hump stuffed bears or something like that."

"_What_?" I balked.

She just laughed at me again. "Spit it out."

"Oh, right. Uh, I don't like you like I like to make out with guys. Do you, uh, know what I mean?"

"Oh Bella!" It seemed as though she barely contained her guffaws. "I'm not a lesbian!"

"Oh. Well, it's just that when you said you liked me, liked me very much, I wasn't sure..."

"Tell me, do you think everyone who tells you they like you is a lesbian?"

"What? No! It's just that...I've had some, er, issues...In that area."

"You were once a lesbian?" she questioned curiously.

"No! Ew, no no no. I like guys. Always have. That's just...ew. No. I just meant that I've been...hit on. Before. By a lesbian. Many many times, actually." Alice's mouth opened in what I thought was shock at first before she began to laugh hysterically.

"Shouldn't you two be working?" Edward asked out of nowhere; I hadn't even heard him walk up.

"I have a question, Edward."

"Yes, Alice?"

"Look around a bit for me, will you?"

"Get to the point, Alice."

"Jeez. What crawled up your ass and got stuck?"

Edward didn't laugh. Nor did he leave. "The point, Alice?"

"Good grief," she sighed. "Do you see any customers that we would need to go assist? Yeah, neither do I."

"There's other work you two could be doing besides running your mouths and gossiping."

To my horror, my mouth fell open in shock. "We weren't gossiping! Were you listening to our conversation?"

"Oh please. I have better things to do than eavesdrop on your silly, ridiculous conversations about lesbians."

To my horror once more, I gasped. "You _were_ listening!"

He turned and walked away without saying another thing.

"Edward!" Alice called after him. "It's seriously rude to walk away like that when you're talking to someone!" She blew out a grumbling breath. "I swear that guy can PMS like a bitchy cheerleader sometimes. I don't—" the customer bell, above the door, jingled, cutting her off as it signaled the entrance of a customer. "Got to get back to work," she said all too cheerily.

"Yep, work." I sighed after she'd gone, feeling awkward again and really not wanting to continue with my previous plan of helping Edward restock. A last-ditch glance around the store informed me how slim my options were. Except...Oh hey. Another customer walked in. I had to help them. I couldn't help Edward now. Such a shame.

"Excuse me, miss?"

I smiled what I hoped was a friendly smile at the woman who'd approached me. She looked about ten years younger than my mom, and she desperately needed someone to show her a calendar so she could discover it was no longer the 80s. Seriously, girlfriend had single-handedly carved a hole the size of an RV in the ozone with the amount of hairspray it must have taken to achieve her 'do.

_And ye shall be called: Muffy._

_Because your hair looks like a poofed-up, wannabe muffin top._

"Yes? May I help you?"

"I hope so." Jeez, Muffy, way to boost up my confidence. What, are you gonna have me fired if I'm unable to locate you some camouflage tampons? "I'm looking for some camouflaged pens."

Yeah, I may have started to puke a little when she uttered the word 'camouflaged', thinking my ridiculous thoughts were actually happening.

"Oh yes, uh, they're...Um," I spluttered a bit. I could picture where they were perfectly, but for the life of me I couldn't remember which aisle they were on.

Muffy sighed, rolling her eyes in what came off as impatience.

"I'll just...er, take you right to 'em!"

I shambled off quickly, hearing Muffy's squeaky sneakers squeaking squeakily behind me. _Say that five times fast. _We arrived at the pen section in no time (_bless you, memory!_), and though I knew I was supposed to try and entice Muffy into buying other things, I just...She was standing there, carefully examining the assortment of camouflage pens as though her life depended on it! How in the world was I supposed to smoothly interrupt her and get her to purchase something else?

_Excuse me, ma'am, I know the scrutiny of those pens is of the utmost importance and you're totally jealous of my fantabulous hair, but could I interest you in some bright orange warning vests? Perhaps a nice twelve-gauge shotgun? Or maybe a lovely 'Hike naked, it adds color to your cheeks' shirt?_

Reality snapped me back just in time to see Muffy and her pens scurrying away toward Alice. For all I knew, she'd only bought _one_ freaking pen.

Maybe this whole "salesgirl", my brain coughed at me until I corrected: "saleswoman", thing would be harder than I'd originally thought...At least in a grocery store, your products pretty much sold themselves, especially since the customers had to keep coming back to get more once they'd eaten the ones they'd bought last week.

I sighed, feeling dejected and not liking it. Of course, who really _liked_ feeling dejected anyway? Well, except for crazies-in-the-head and masochists, obviously.

Annoyed with myself even as I did it, I turned my wrist, grimacing at the time my watch proudly flaunted.

Not even close to quittin' time yet, you ball-less chicken you.

_Okay. You can do this._ I rolled my shoulders as though I were some boxer preparing for a brawl in the ring. Which was actually a square, not circular. So weird.

* * *

Was it possible for a watch to sing a hallelujah chorus?

I had to wonder when I glanced, _again_, at mine and noticed it was closing time. As I hopped (well, not really, it was more alone the lines of...'jauntily walked') up to Alice, I once more thanked the common-sense part of my brain that'd convinced me to wear comfortable shoes rather than ones more geared toward making a good impression. Because if my feet had already begun to ache in my comfy Converse, there was no telling how much they would have hated me if I'd worn an uncomfortable shoe.

Alice clicked the lock on the door to the store in place, flipping the closed sign in the window and turning to me with an exaggerated roll of her eyes.

"So how was your first day?" she asked as we strolled back toward the break room together.

I nodded, flashbacks of the day playing through my head. "Good. Good."

She nudged me in the side with an elbow. "I heard Charlie took you aside this afternoon to get some specifics worked out."

"Yep." I couldn't kill my grin. It felt better than I could have imagined to know I wouldn't have to go begging anyone for money, or, Batman save me, move back in with my parents.

"That's great, Bella." Alice's tone rang with sincerity as she clocked out. "I think we're going to enjoy having you here." Putting on her coat, she smiled genuinely at me.

_Did I detect a hint of mischievousness and/or wickedness in that smile?_

I bit my lip, possibly just a smidgen terrified that my eyes didn't deceive me about her grin, but returned her smile. "And I think I'm going to enjoy being here." Slightly startled by how true my words felt, I waved at Alice as she disappeared out the door with a parting 'See you tomorrow!'

After I'd gathered up my coat and bag and all that necessary stuff, I slowly approached the time clock, unused to one you didn't just swipe a card through. Luckily for me, a timecard with my name scrawled in big black letters across the top had already been added next to the foreign machine (all the blame belonged to Newton's for spoiling me on electronic time clocks).

Common sense, not to mention closely studying Alice not two minutes ago, told me I just slipped the elongated, made-of-some-kind-of-heavy-paper card into the slit on the machine, and said machine did the rest of the work.

So that's exactly what I did.

With maybe only a second or two of slow approach like the machine was rabid, as well as _alive_, and would attack me any minute.

A voice coming, surprisingly, from right over my shoulder scared the shit out of me. And perhaps it was also in part to _whom _the voice belonged.

"Next time, Bella, could you perhaps stamp your timecard a little more crooked? I don't think it's completely unreadable quite yet."

I stared at him, mouth open, still disbelieving he'd say something like that despite the day in which he'd pretty much proved otherwise.

Unfortunately, I didn't find my voice until _after _he'd finished with his timecard, grabbed his jacket, and strode out of the Employee room.

"Yeah, well maybe if _somebody's_ ego wasn't so huge, my stamp would have enough room." I maturely stuck my tongue out at the space he'd occupied a minute ago, gusting out a breath of air as I crossed my arms.

Infuriating asshole who really needed to be put in his place?

_Check._

_

* * *

_

**A/N: I do not have a problem with lesbians. Nor does Bella. Her reaction about them is just her thinking about kissing (and etc) a woman, specifically she was thinking of the not-exactly-attractive-or-in-her-age-range woman who frequently eyeballs her at the post office. Just wanted to clarify... Oh, and if anyone else reads Lemon Muffins' work, you'll get the lesbian thing before it's explained. ;) And if you don't read her work, you should go do so. Now would be a good time.  
**


	3. Snap

**A/N: Important note: Forks is not the tiny, three-thousand people town as it is in canon. Nor is it the six-hundred-thousand people town of Seattle. (Think somewhere between...more than thirty-thousand, but less than sixty-thousand, and no 60-floor skyscrapers either.) Many thanks to Salix caprea for reminding me of that little detail! You're a doll, doll! :)**

**Many thanks also to my darling iponnedyou, for not only beta-ing this baby, but putting up with me and such randomness that includes an outburst about Angelina Jolie's headlights. Lol! The dear is wonderfully amazing, truly. Oh, and she's also made a thread on Twilighted for Shopward! Or, er, for this story. The link's on my profile so go check it out, I'll post teasers there. :P  
**

**The ears are for you, Gracie Lou. ;) Cause you are wonderful.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own SM's character's names. Nor her unfortunate initials...**

**

* * *

**

******* **Bella's POV**

_Greenheart, oh dear Greenheart, I need your help. First off, I know we've never discussed age, but in order for this plea of help to make sense and not have me sound like I am nothing but a complete idiot, you need to know I've not exactly been around the block. That is to say, I'm young (though above legal drinking age, in case you may have been wondering). And quite possibly stupid. Regardless, to the point, yes? Have you ever met someone you simply instantly dislike? You can't really write out a page of ten reasons WHY you dislike said person, yet you do. In my case, I happen to work with this person, therefore leaving me without the option to just avoid and/or ignore them. Now to the part where I need your help. What on NSync's multi-platinum earth do I DO? I've never precisely encountered such a problem. Not to say that everyone I've ever met has always liked me, I'm not that naïve and disillusioned. But on those other occasions, I could easily avoid and most usually ignore the person. Unfortunately, such is not the case this time._

_I'm afraid I have to cut this shorter than I'd initially intended due to the fact that my brother is currently jumping up and down as though he's a three year old, demanding I take the cupcakes I'd baked out of the oven this instant so he can have one. And if I want this letter to get to you as soon as possible, I need to have it in the mailbox before our bad-tempered postman, who waits for no one to take two seconds to lick a stamp, arrives._

_Wishing a key lime cupcake would mail well,_  
Belletrist

* * *

"Okay, stairs first then juggling," I mumbled to myself as I almost tripped down the stairs in front of my house. I reached the bottom and resumed my attempt at balancing a frosted cupcake, a cup of coffee, my current read, my vibrating cell phone, my purse and the lip gloss I was trying to put back in my purse.

Suffice it to say it was not working.

Annnd, the book was down. Followed by the lip gloss.

"Shit shit, shit a brick!" I glanced from my coffee to the ground, judging and deliberating for a second before deciding.

_I really liked that lip gloss._

"Okay, alright, not good." Coffee on the hand, hot coffee on the hand. Hot coffee on the hand holding the still vibrating phone.

"Excuse me?" someone passing by me on the sidewalk asked, sounding shocked. Ha, idiot thought I was talking to them. Right. Because a woman bent over in a possibly-too-short-for-this-kind-of-maneuver skirt with coffee, cupcake, and phone in one hand, purse falling off shoulder and down other arm as it strained to potentially release all its many contents, and reaching to the ground for a book and tube of lip gloss would be talking to your random stranger ass.

"Keep it moving, Mrs. Fletcher."

My middle finger curled around the tube of lip gloss, index and thumb closing around the book.

_Score!_

Straightening back up, I dropped the lip gloss into my purse (first things first, lest we have a repeat incident), tucked the book under my arm, and switched my phone to the other hand.

_Still vibrating. Appears undamaged._

I licked some coffee off the screen, preparing to answer what was obviously a very important phone call since the caller hadn't stopped calling from the moment I'd stepped out the door.

And then I looked at my phone, really looked.

Cue the freezing. Of me.

You know those moments where you're just too...too...whatever to kick the conveniently placed potted plant beside your foot or even swear up and down both sides of the Empire State Building? Yeah, this was one of those moments.

All the juggling had initially started because my phone vibrated. Therefore, all the trouble that went with and happened after the juggling, was also due to my phone vibrating.

The cause of the vibrating?

_Calendar appointment: Don't Be Late For Work_

No words.

No. Fledging. Words.

I shoved my phone more roughly than it deserved (after all, _I _was the one who'd made the stupid reminder in the first place) into my purse. And felt something cold, wet and sticky brush the underside of my forearm.

Green-tinted, coconut-flavored frosting. On my arm. And my shirt. And a little in my hair.

Peachy. Just a perfectly peachy way to start the day.

Snorting at my own mind's ridiculous rhyme, I licked the frosting off my arm. No reason to let a little frosting ruin my whole day.

Fuck, I made tastily excellent frosting.

As I began the convenient (oh blessed luck, how I love thee) few block walk to The River Divot, and made a mental note to ask someone what the hell was _up_ with that name, the rest of the frosting disappeared. Well, and the cupcake too.

I was halfway there when I felt the slight buzzing feeling in my purse strap, signaling my phone was yet again vibrating. After debating for a moment, I just dug it out.

_Calendar appointment: Don't Forget To Bring Lunch_

_Really, Bella? I mean, really?_

This was what I got for sitting on the couch watching a lame-ass Hallmark movie with my phone in reach.

* * *

Why in the grease-lovin' world were people always _complaining _about price guns?

I punched another sticker onto a random object, fighting a childish urge to giggle.

Holey socks on sale this was _fun_!

"Nice price gun you got there. Would you like to see mine?"

I whipped to face the voice, surprised at what I saw standing there. A big man, easily football-star size, with broad shoulders and an equally broad (yet not chubby) midsection. Large arms sprouted off him, going along with his large legs. Though I didn't really go for the type this size, his face was cute, somehow negating the meanness his size suggested with a teddy-bear-ish look, substantial (but adorable nonetheless) ears, and a tamed head of unexpected brown curls.

When my examination reached his eyes, light brown in color, he winked.

"Shouldn't you be out shirking your delivery duties in favor of making out, Emmett?"

Startled yet again by an unanticipated voice, I turned my head sharply to the right, looking over my shoulder. I found Edward there, surprised yet again to find slight annoyance written across his face. I was more surprised though to realize I'd recognized his annoyance.

_Behold! The Donkey _can_ display emotion!_

As cheers from a fake crowd echoed in my head, I refocused my attention on Burly Bear. "So _you're _Emmett?"

He crossed his arms over his chest, imitating smugness I knew straight off the bat wasn't legit, and leaned back. Only...whatever he thought was behind him that he could lean on wasn't there. So instead, catching himself off guard, he toppled clumsily backward and righted himself a hair before he fell to the floor.

My lips were already mashed together to keep from laughing at the episode, but when I saw his embarrassed flush, my shoulders shook with restrained amusement.

"I take it you've heard of me?" he continued our conversation as if he hadn't just blundered.

"Some," I admitted, grinning widely.

Edward butted in, sounding exasperated, "Don't you have some sort of work to do, Emmett?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?"

Much to my shock, I literally _heard_ Edward's teeth grind. "Hitting on the new girl, while, by the by, you already _have_ a girlfriend, is_ not_ part of your job."

"Aww, did wittle Eddy Weddy wake up on de wong side of de bed dis more-nin'?" Emmett teased in baby-talk, his voice ridiculously pitched.

I only had a moment to fight back laughter before Edward, face once again set in that annoyingly unreadable way, pushed by me. His side brushed rudely with my shoulder (effing tall people!) as he passed.

"Stop flirting with your coworker and get back to work, Bella."

Muttering after him so low _I _could barely hear what I was saying, I turned back to my price gun.

"Don't pay any attention to him. He's just mad still because I stole his Gucci bag."

"Huh?"

Emmett waved his hand, a rather huge hand, I noted, dismissively at me. "Just making a joke to that display of Edward's woman-moodiness."

"Ahh." I chuckled briefly before happily slapping five cans of spray-paint with price stickers in rapid succession.

"Well, I've got to get going. I'll see you later, Bella, was it?"

"Y–yeah. How did you know that?" _Maybe because Edward just said your name not five seconds ago, you idiot._

"I know all." Emmett winked. "We'll have to find you a suitable nickname there, Bella." And with the haunting possibility of all the things such an odd hulk of a man could come up with, I was left alone to my price-gun-shooting.

"Did you just meet Emmett?"

I jumped at the voice coming from behind me, spinning around to face its owner. "Oh for the love of all things—"

"Sexy?" Alice giggled.

"No! And what the...frick," I decided on after a slight pause, "is up with all these people sneaking up on me today?"

Alice's mouth opened a little. "Who's sneaking up on you?"

"You, for one."

She laughed. "I like you, Bella. You're a hoot!"

"Yeah yeah, whatever," I muttered, turning to resume my work with the price gun.

"Soo...Emmett?"

"Yeah, what about him?"

"Did you just meet him?"

"Yep."

"Annnd?"

"And you're a really nosy person, aren't you?" I didn't say it in a mean way, more in a wondering and hey-cool-I'm-starting-to-figure-out-slash-understand-you way.

Alice lifted her chin, appearing playfully snooty. "I like to call it _concerned_." With that she started to back away. "I'll hit you up for details and info," she coughed, "I mean _impressions _and _opinions_ later."

_I have fallen into some twisted version of a comedy hour. I just know it._

_And yet...I am not running in the other direction screaming._

_In fact, I kinda like it._

_You've got issues, Bella. Serious issues._

_

* * *

_"Lunch, lunch, luh-unch," I sang under my breath to myself, resisting the urge to throw a little skip in my walk.

_What did I bring for lunch again?_

Still pondering that, as well as why I couldn't actually _remember_ what I'd brought for lunch, I headed straight for the break room.

"No no no, we need to...ya know, with a nice, vibrant cerise."

"Cerise? No way!"

"Ha, I knew hanging around me long enough would end up with my color knowledge rubbing off on you."

That was definitely Alice's voice and the other kind of sounded like...

"Blah blah, shut up. We are _not_ going through with this with _cerise_."

Emmett?

I peeked only my head around the jamb of the door to the break room, angling toward where the voices sounded like they were coming from.

"_What_ is so wrong with cerise? Huh?" Alice's hands were gesturing with each thing she said.

Emmett's were doing the same, making both of them look as though they came from the same 'we-like-gesturing-with-our-hands-to-further-emphasize-our-point' parents. "It's...it's girly!"

"She _is_ a girl!" Alice put her hands, palm out, in the direction of Emmett as she spoke. I wasn't sure what that was supposed to emphasize though. 'Please understand the point I'm trying to make'? 'You are such an idiot, I don't know why I even bother talking to you'? Or maybe just 'Aargh'?

"Well, uh," Emmett scratched one of his on-the-large-side-yet-totally-cute ears with one of his big hands, "I guess you got a point there."

Alice crossed her arms, appearing completely smug.

"I still don't think we should decorate it though!"

Decorate? Decorate what? What the hell were they even talking about?

"Ugh." She uncrossed her arms, instead placing them on her hips. "And why is that?"

Emmett shrugged. "I don't know. Cause I just don't want to?"

Alice laughed. "Alright, at least you're honest." It was Emmett's turn to look smug now. "But," Alice cut off his smugness by raising her index finger at him, "don't think that just automatically means we'll do what you suggested."

"And _why_ not?" Emmett shifted as he said it, and my eyes finally took in where they were standing. I could see the pink residue over steel gray even from my vantage point.

"Cause it's stupid and just a little bit mean."

"It is _not_ mean!"

"It also won't help with what my initial reasoning behind any of this was."

Emmett didn't say anything, staring at Alice.

"To completely get rid of the gum traces, remember?" Alice hands had never stopped motioning.

I was torn between being touched that these people, whom I'd known one week and the other two hours, wanted to do something about my locker, and annoyed that they hadn't included me in whatever they were planning on doing to my locker.

What if I didn't like cerise? Whatever the hell kind of color that was.

"Yeah yeah, I remember now." Both Emmett's hands brushed the air dismissively. "But still. We could thoroughly clean it and _then_—"

"But it'll still be plain if we do that," Alice cut him off.

"She can decorate it herself after that." Emmett shrugged.

I could tell by the lack of instant response that Alice was considering Emmett's words.

"Okay, you have a point there, but I still don't think it'd be exactly nice if we—"

Emmett cut her off this time, further making them seem like siblings. Or at least people who spent a lot of time around each other. "Oh come on! A prank for the newcomer is a classic!"

"True. But I like Bella and I don't want to her to be mad at us or anything..."

"Aw," Emmett put a hand on Alice's shoulder, patting it, "it's cute to see you worried." He laughed and removed his hand.

Alice seemed to ignore his last comment. "I still think we should decorate it ourselves."

Emmett sighed in what came off as playful annoyance. "Whatever, midget. I still think a springy snake and a bowl of pudding would be _so_ much better."

Pudding? What in the world would he do with a bowl of pudding in a prank?

"What are you doing?"

I jumped at the voice, close to my ear. "Ahhh!"

I expected The Donkey to be there with a disapproving frown all over his face, but instead it was Jasper, a confused and puzzled look furrowing his eyebrows and forehead.

Umm..."Getting lunch?" _Way to make your explanation sound confident, truthful and assured, Bella._

"Is your break over, Alice?" Jasper asked into the break room, thankfully ignoring my pathetic reasoning as he walked by me.

"Mmhmm," Alice nodded. I had to give her credit for only looking mildly guilty and deer-totally-caught-in-the-high-beams.

"Hello again, Bella." Emmett, on the other hand, didn't look guilty or caught-red-handed at all. He picked something up off the table, shoved it in his mouth, and headed out into the rest of the store. "Goshago. Thee ooh all waiter," he mumbled with a mouth full of whatever he was eating.

Alice chewed delicately on the nail of her left ring finger when he'd disappeared. "How, er, long had you been standing there, Bella?"

Moment of truth: go with the truth, or not and let her think I had no idea what she was planning?

_Or_, go with the vague and hopefully confusing answer?

"Thanks for defending me against a prank." I smiled at her. "I like pudding, but only when it goes directly into my mouth."

She stopped biting her nail and let out a breath. "I know I've said this before, but I'm still really sorry about the inside of the locker. We knew Maggie left her gum on the outside of the locker, and she got in trouble a lot for that, but we had no idea the inside was that bad until she left..."

Wielding a rather non-pointy stick, I fought off the images of what my locker must have looked like _before _they'd given it its initial cleaning. "It's not like it's your fault, Alice."

Releasing another loud breath, she turned to Jasper. Who I'd sort of forgot had been standing there the whole time.

_Why so quiet, Surfer Boy?_

"Are you on lunch break now?" Alice asked him.

He hummed acknowledgement and pulled a Mountain Dew from the mini fridge.

_Which reminded me..._

I crossed to my locker, ignoring the traces of gum still stuck to the front, and pulled my lunch baggie out.

Cheese puffs, orange slices, and—

"PB and J!"

Silence broken by a quiet snicker had me remembering I wasn't exactly alone.

"Excited about your lunch there, Bella?" Jasper teased, a playful light flickering in his eyes.

"Um," I felt embarrassment at my outburst flame quietly up into my cheeks, "yes. I'd forgotten I'd packed peanut butter and jelly today..."

"What about you, Jazz?" Alice wondered, lingering near the doorway as though she didn't really want to leave. "What did you pack today?"

Still standing by the mini fridge, Jasper shrugged and reached back into it, pulling out a Subway bag. "Subway Club on parmesan oregano bread."

My eyes narrowed in complete jealousy. I had a lame-o PB and J on white Wonderbread, and he had a Subway Club.

Fucker.

"Oh and hey," Jasper pulled something else out of the fridge. "Is this yours, Bella?"

I stared at the can of grape soda, wishing it were easier to stay mad at Jasper for having packed a better lunch than me.

"Yeah, it is." Maybe my devious alternate personality had snuck in a chocolate snack pack, and my pathetic lunch could be salvaged.

* * *

As I walked out of the break room, sufficiently ending my lunch break as well, my phone vibrated in my pocket.

_Whatcha up toooo?**  
****Big Bad Wolf******_

I rolled my eyes at my brother's ridiculous signature, typing him a hasty reply.

_Working, beefbrain._

_Mmm, beef. Can we have that for din?**  
****Big Bad Wolf_******

_Ignoring you now. Have, ya know, WORK to do!_

_I still want beef for dinner...  
******Big Bad Wolf******_

"Texting during working hours is strictly frowned upon."

I looked up from my phone, not surprised to see Edward standing in front of me. Practically glaring.

...the hell?

It was just texting! Alice had _totally_ been doing it the entire week I'd been working in this place!

Forgetting Edward, or more along the lines of straight out ignoring him, I glanced back to the vibrating plastic in my hand. And then proceeded to quickly read the two new messages.

_Bells?**  
****Big Bad Wolf******_

_Beef, Bells! Beef!**  
****Big Bad Wolf******_

"I suggest you cease and desist before more severe actions must be taken." With that, Edward extended a hand, smooth and swift as...some sort of smooth and swift animal or creature, and snicked my phone shut.

He literally turned on his heel and started to walk away. And then...then something snapped inside me. Like a twig in the forest after being stepped on by someone, like a wet towel whipped against bare skin, like the fingers of a stellar magician right before revealing the end result of his trick.

Yes, something snapped.

"Do you have some sort of back issue that causes you to constantly be _turning_ said back on people, aka walking away?" Edward froze mid-stride, and I just continued on, unable, or rather _not willing_, to stop. "Or is it a foot issue that renders you incapable of standing in one place for too long?"

He'd turned fully around now, and stepped back a bit closer to me. "Excuse me?"

"Must be awful for your girlfriend then, huh?" I shook my head in mock pity. "No up-against-a-wall sex with that foot issue, nosiree."

"I don't have a girlfriend."

It seemed like such an odd response, at least for him. And not at all the response I'd been expecting, that I almost fumbled a little. Almost.

"Well then your shower must just _wail_ in loneliness as your bathtub sticks its tongue out at it in triumph. Pray tell, what's your favorite bubble bath?"

"What's yours?" His eyes were flashing with something I couldn't, surprise surprise, read. Fucker.

"Juniper Breeze." Lie. Total lie. That was my favorite lotion. My house didn't have a bathtub; in fact, I hadn't taken an actual bath, bubbles or no, in years. "What's your favorite bubble bath?" I repeated because, hey, some people need things repeated before they really hear. And sometimes _people_ were just too big of an asshole to bother with that pesky little thing known as polite responses. "Raspberry cloud?"

He looked surprised for a moment, before disgusted horrification took over his face. "What?"

"Wow, looks like somebody's run out of clever responses."

"Why are you so sure I use a bubble bath? Maybe I use bath salts."

I stared at him, raising an eyebrow, wondering if he realized how ridiculous he sounded.

"You do realize how ridiculous that sounded, right?"

Well, maybe not. Maybe he needed help realizing.

"How what sounded?"

"What you said."

"When?"

My lips pursed of their own accord, a sign of frustration. "Well it sounded ridiculous."

"I'm sure there's a lot that sounds ridiculous to one such as yourself."

I hated my mouth in that moment. My damn, disloyal mouth that fell open in shock. Or surprise? Disbelief, maybe? Whatever, my mouth dropped open just like in friggin' movies and...and whatever else people's mouths dropped open in.

Treacherous mouth or no, my brain still knew how to make it speak.

"And I'm sure there's a lot that isn't felt by one such as _yourself_."

We narrowed our eyes at each other as we stood there, staring off as though in an old Western.

"Oh, Bella! Have you seen my..."

My gaze broke away from Edward's to look at Sue, who'd trailed off upon seeing us and how weird we looked. Or how weird I imagined we looked standing there, glaring at each other.

"Hey, Sue!" I changed my glower to a smile more easily than I would have thought possible. "What's up?"

"Oh, um," she patted the sides of her hair, smoothing them back, "I was just wondering if you'd seen my keys anywhere...I can't remember where I left them, but my lunch is in my car. Which is locked." She flashed me an apologetic, unsure smile.

Before I could answer, Edward did.

"I think I saw them on aisle three, Sue." His voice was all charm and caramel, dripping sweetness like a bottle of honey. Nothing even _close _to the tone he'd had with me not forty seconds ago. Asshole. "Next to the wallets."

"Oh!" Sue's hands flew up beside her face as she started to scurry off. "That's _right_! I was thinking of buying my nephew a wallet for his birthday earlier this morning..." Her voice faded as she got farther away.

"I'm going to take my lunch break," Edward's voice broke me out of my cheery thoughts of pretending he didn't exist. _Thank you for the notice, Captain Schedule._ "Think you might possibly be able to handle any customers that come in while I'm gone?"

I suddenly wished I'd brought an extra cupcake with me when I'd left this morning, for the simple reason of being able to smash it into his face right now.

Maybe not. I wouldn't want to waste a cupcake on his sorry ass.

Smiling sweetly, I forced my jaw to separate so I could speak like a normal person. "I'm sure I'll be fine. And if not, I can always just direct the customer to where the lunch room is so they can seek your expert counsel. Best keep a napkin next to you, just in case." I gestured vaguely to my face, "Food crumbs, not appealing to customers."

Alright, so maybe I hadn't ever actually seen Edward with food crumbs on his face since I'd started working here, but hey, the insult was still clear, right?

For the first time, I walked away before _he _could respond, feeling a lot better (_cough_moreself-satisfied_cough_) than I had in a while. Okay, a week. But a week could nevertheless feel like a long time sometimes.

I had a hunch I might be feeling a lot more self-satisfied in the soon-to-be-here future. And I kinda liked it.

* * *

**A/N: Many many thanks to everyone who reads and/or reviews. Y'all make my heart feel like it's been sitting too close to the toaster, and hasn't brushed its teeth in three weeks. ;)**


	4. Biker Bitch

**A/N: ****I am so very sorry for the wait! Long chapter to partially make up for it.**

**Iponeddyou is an amazing dear who should not be surprised if I suddenly show up on her doorstep belting "You're the inspiraaaation!"**

**_Enhoy_ (XD) the boxers and lack of Jake clothes, Ms. Freebush. Because you share my view on Chip Estin's _party favor_. ;)**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the Twilight characters, the movie The Shop Around the Corner upon which I first based this idea, or the ability to focus completely. Yeah, fml.**

**

* * *

********* **Bella's POV**

"You're gonna be late."

"I am not, now shut up oh so helpful Mr. Rogers."

"Mr. Rogers?"

I sighed, pausing in my scurrying about the room to roll my eyes at my brother. "If you don't know who Mr. Rogers is, I'm afraid I'll have to disown you. As well as shun you and kick your big butt out onto the street."

And I was back to the scurrying.

This was my first time working on a Sunday since Sunday had been my usual and regular day off at Newton's. And the lack of habit of waking up early on a Sunday had not conspired to make me on time. First, I ignored my alarm clock and got up twenty minutes after I'd originally planned, then I dropped the soap in the shower and fought a five minute battle trying to get it back without inadvertently rinsing out my conditioner (note to self: switch to body wash already), then the milk that I'd already poured all over my Raisin Bran was sour, and finally I'd somehow misplaced all my clean bras.

The result of all this early morning fuckness: I was running far too late for my liking.

_I hate Sundays._

"Pants," Jake called nonchalantly from the couch, where he was taking good advantage of a Sunday and lounging leisurely in just his The Fox and the Hound boxers. _I think I hate my brother too._ "And I do not have a big butt."

Frantic, I looked hastily to my legs before directing a glare at him. "Not funny, butthole with a big butt."

He laughed, switching the channel to some other stupid cartoon.

_Okay, underwear, pants, keys, shirt, purse, book, breakfast bar_—

"Shoes!" I headed for the stairs, nearly tripping as I hurried up them, into my room.

And paused in front of my bed.

My unmade bed.

"No no no," I chanted quietly to myself. "Now is _not_ the time to give in to Anal-Retentive Bella."

I dashed to my closet, flicking a quick glance at my watch.

_8:45_

Fifteen minutes. If I figured it was an eight or nine minute walk to the store when really power-strutting, a two minute greeting, two minute walk to the time clock, and then a minute or two allowing for any problems...

"Shit!"

Quickly finishing the knot on my remaining sneaker, I grabbed up the things I'd set down for my shoe hunt, and made for my door.

"I'll get to you later," I told my unmade bed and blankets decisively.

As I rushed back down the stairs, I had to wonder how I'd become one of those people who always seemed to be, well, _rushing_ to get out the door and to wherever they needed to be. Surely I wasn't like this before. Right?

Jake's intended-to-provoke singsong voice greeted me at the bottom of the stairs. "Five bucks says you're late."

"I don't gamble."

"Only when you know you're gonna lose."

"Don't you have some Dora to watch or something?" I hurried out the door before he could say anything in response.

_8:47_

I adopted an almost-jogging walk while I proceeded to try and chew my breakfast at the same time.

_I'm going to die from choking. I just know it._

"Hey hey, move it to the side, Dog Whisperer!" I called as a small woman walking a whole fleet of dogs appeared in my path.

Now I don't know how, but it was like the dogs _knew _I was running late and purposely wanted to aid in that lateness. It was the only explanation I could come up with for how they set up a perfect strategy of one sniffing me while another two blocked my path, two others barked to confuse the hell out of me, and yet another took up the first's sniffing place in a neat rotation.

"Brumfeld, no! Wilhelmina, stop! Blossom, heal! Fitzwilliam, enough! Bubbles, halt!"

The tiny woman continued calling out exclamations of no-no's, but the dogs weren't listening.

_I bet they're in cahoots with Jake._

In a last-ditch attempt (the sniffing was getting _way_ too personal; far more personal than I'd had in a while, actually), I made my voice higher, more enthusiastic, and pointed across the street with a finger. "Look over there! What's that?"

As predicted, the dogs forgot me and instantly stood to attention, looking all around. It was kind of cute, in a way. At least, until I looked at my watch again.

_8:51_

_What's it called when you kill your brother? Sibling-icide? Cause he is so dead. Him and his furry little cohorts._

I pretty much flat-out jogged the rest of the way to the store, my purse and hair flapping around me. I wouldn't even have time to put my sweaty, icky, no doubt frizzified hair into a ponytail before I had to see everyone. Great.

Sprinting through the door, with only a vague glance at the 'Sorry, We're Closed' sign I hadn't quite gotten used to being up even when everyone was there, I greeted a confused looking Alice. "Hi, Alice. Bye, Alice. Be right back, Alice."

She laughed hesitantly, her voice following my hustling footsteps. "That's my name; don't wear it out."

"Morning, Sue," I called to her as I passed her going down an aisle.

"Bella?"

I didn't have time to ask her what her question was, so I just kept on walking-not-running-but-kinda-sorta-running-a-little-bit.

Break room, time clock, my time sheet, sliding, ink—

_8:58_

"Yes!" Despite myself, I pumped a fist in the air in triumph.

_I totally should have taken that bet._

"Bella?"

I whipped around to see Alice and Sue standing in the doorway, their eyes flicking between me and Edward, who I just realized was in the room, apparently microwaving some beverage.

_I bet he woke up on time and doesn't have a bar of soap to lose and doesn't forget his shoes._

Fucker.

"Uh, yeah?" It was only now that I realized I was panting slightly.

"Oh honey," Sue began, "you know we won't penalize you for being a couple minutes late! Especially on your first actual weekend here."

She...they...uh... "What?"

Alice laughed, lightening the mood a bit. "Did you rush here, Bella?"

Almost got the panting under control, almost got the panting under control. Why was I panting? It wasn't as if it was _that_ much of a workout. _It's the stress. The stress. Yes yes, the stress of this whole mess._ Snorting would not help me at all, so I told my brain to shut up, and focused back on the present and reality. "What makes you say that?"

Sue and Alice both raised an eyebrow in tandem.

I swallowed. "Well, um, I may or may not have accidentally overslept. And had a fight with my soap. And...yeah, let's just say I'm not used to working Sundays yet?"

"Aw dear." Sue came over and patted my shoulder comfortingly. "I told you, we won't penalize you for being a couple minutes late in situations like this. Now, if you make a severe habit of it..." She narrowed her eyes, but didn't appear any less mothering.

The beeping of the microwave got my attention, and I turned slightly to see Edward pulling some sort of cup out.

Yes, maybe Sue wouldn't reprimand me for being a minute or two late, but I had no doubts that _he_ would.

_If he's not late, I'm not going to be late._

_

* * *

_I had to admit, the first time I'd been made aware of the whole working-on-Sundays-from-nine-to-noon thing, I'd been confused. I mean, three hours on a Sunday morning? What kind of business could you do that would make it at all worth it to be open for three hours on a Sunday morning?

And I'd been right. We didn't do much business on Sundays.

No, working on Sunday mornings was more for cleaning than customers.

Sunday was, apparently, the day almost all the cleaning was done. The scrubbing of the toilets, the washing of the mirrors in the bathroom, mopping the floor of the break room, dusting anything that needed to be dusted, sweeping the eggshell-colored tiles of the floor, cleaning any smudgy display cases. It was sort of astounding to realize how dirty one store got in only a week. If, of course, this was a weekly Sunday ritual. Which I could only imagine it was.

"Oh, Bella, hey!" I met Jasper on my way to returning the giant sweeping broom thingy to the supply closet.

I peered at him, wondering why he looked somehow different to me. "Um, hi, Jasper. How are you this morning?" That was the kind of polite greeting you gave to coworkers, right?

"Where are you headed?"

"I'm just returning this," I held up the broom thingy that didn't at all look like what I pictured when I thought of a broom, "to the supply closet."

And the winner for most awkwardly weird conversation of the day goes to... "Oh nice, nice. So...what are you going to do next?"

"I don't know?" Brilliant answer. I was so amazingly articulate people should record my conversations and frame the transcripts in a museum.

"Well, here." Jasper wheeled a vacuum from behind him. "You can vacuum the office next."

And I finally, suddenly understood why he had looked different. He was smiling evilly. Deviously? Wickedly? Well, it wasn't a sweet and innocent smile, let's just leave it at that.

He walked away after abandoning the vacuum in front of me, heading toward the metal spiral staircase in the back of the store that led to the second floor.

I stared down at the dirt-sucking contraption as though one look from me and it would drop to the ground in sheer terror. Obviously it didn't. Because it was just a machine. And it couldn't move without the aid of a human. Or maybe a very smart animal. Like a chimp. Could chimps vacuum? Hmm...

Because my thoughts were starting to get a little ridiculous, I decided to instead focus on my new task.

_Broom first, Bella._

I stuck the broom, or rather "broom" (because finger quotes were very important in such a situation) back in the supply closet, fighting the urge to hide in there myself. With my luck, someone would find me all too soon and then immediately assume I'd been making out with a shelf and have me thrown into a loony bin. Not to mention fired.

Yeah, no. No hiding in the supply closet.

Jasper had mentioned an office. I could only assume he meant Charlie's, unless of course there was some other office in this building that I didn't know about...I didn't put it past the building to have hidden rooms currently being used as offices.

Pushing the vacuum in front of me, I walked toward Charlie's office. Vacuuming wasn't so hard, right? You just turned it on and navigated, and the vacuum did the rest.

_Wow, what a funny word._ _Vacuum. Vaaaaack-yooooom._

I giggled what I could only hope was quietly as I pushed open the door to Charlie's office.

Alright, so maybe he had a bit _too_ many small pieces of furniture that would be hard to vacuum under without using the nozzle hose thing, but I could do it.

_I wonder if this is some sort of Rivot Divot hazing type of thing...Having to vacuum the office._

Plugging in the vacuum, I started her up. If vacuums could have genders, that was. Of course, boats and cars had genders, so why not vacuums?

_I christen thee: Valerie._

_Valerie Vacuum._

Thankfully, my snort was drowned out by the sounds of Valerie. As was just about every other sound. _Damn_ this was one loud vacuum!

As I made my way around Charlie's desk, pushing Valerie underneath it, I had to wonder where he'd gone. I mean, when you spend most of your day in your office, where do you go when it needs to be cleaned and it's not one of those skyscraper offices that gets cleaned at night?

No, I was just being ridiculous. He'd probably only gone out to the main part of the store.

_Find something else to occupy your thoughts, Bella._

One, two, buckle my shoe. Three, four, open the door. Five, six, pick up sticks...

Twenty minutes later, when I'd finished using the attachable hose to get under all the little pieces of furniture and in all the little cracks and crevices, I wanted to shoot myself. Vacuuming was the most boring, meaningless task. At least when you didn't have a song to dance to like Mrs. Doubtfire.

With any luck, hopefully now it'd be close to quitting time.

_11:55_

Oh yeah, I had good timing.

I grinned to myself, replacing the vacuum in its home and setting my sights on clocking out next.

"Hey, Bella!" I turned from gathering my things in my locker when I heard my name called.

Poking my head out the door of the break room with no idea as to who it was that had called my name, I answered to the entire store, "Yeah?"

"Over here." My head turned toward the sound of the voice, and I found the owner standing near the door.

Emmett.

I held up a single finger toward him as I smiled, telling him I'd be just a moment. Grabbing my stuff, I locked my locker (and giggled at the idea of that) before leaving the break room and heading for Emmett.

"What's up?" I said by way of greeting. For the first time I realized what he was wearing with his regular t-shirt: tight black cycling shorts with a gray stripe down each side.

_Wow, that's a big sock he's got stuffed down there..._

Horrified with myself, my mind, and my eyes for going there, I whipped the last back up to his face. His grinning face. Oh shit. _Busted_.

Before I had a chance to babble out something embarrassing or even ask Emmett why he was wearing shorts like _that_, I noticed the woman beside him. She was, in the one word I could think of, pretty. Beautiful, gorgeous, stunning, the words came flooding back to me as I felt instant jealousy rising. I knew I wasn't ugly, but on the other hand I also knew I wasn't supermodel material.

Model Girl had a figure appropriate of her name: slender but with curves, long legs that helped in making her as tall as she was, eyes a deep blue, almost purplish color (I dimly wondered if they were contacts), and blonde hair that went down to her boobs. Boobs, I noticed with a surge of happiness, that were on the small side.

_Score one for us shorter chicks!_

"She likes cars and mechanic stuff."

Confused, I turned to find Alice standing beside me where I'd stopped a short distance away from Emmett and Model Girl. "What?"

"You had that 'Why have I never seen her on the cover of a magazine?' look on your face." _I did? Stupid face._ "Rose has the looks and the sometimes bitchy attitude to be a model or pageant contestant, but she hasn't been in to that kind of stuff since she left her tween days behind. She prefers car engines and mechanics," Alice tucked a stray strand of her hair back into place as she smiled at me, "that kind of whatnot."

"Oh." As pathetic a response as it was, it was all I could think to say.

_Wait a minute..._

"Rose? As in Rosalie, Sue's daughter?" I'd heard the name, which I may or may not have _accidentally_ committed to memory because it wasn't exactly common, come up a few times in passing conversation.

"Yep, that's her."

Once more, the only reply I could come up with was, "Oh."

"She and Emmett are _finally_ a thing." Alice's grin became even broader with her words. "Come on," she grabbed my arm, "I'll introduce you."

A practically skipping Alice skidded to a stop in front of Rosalie and Emmett, forcing me to do the same, though with far less grace than Alice.

"Rose, this is Bella. Bella, this is Rosalie, or Rose."

Rosalie politely stuck her hand out to me, and I shook it. She had smooth skin.

"I've heard about you, Bella." She smiled at me, and because I was sick, sick person, I happily noticed she had a crown on her right canine that showed when she smiled big like she just had.

That's right, smiled big. At me. While I was being a bitch about her non-perfect teeth.

_Jeez, Bella._

"I've heard a little about you too." I smiled back, mostly just to make myself feel less like a bitch. We released each other's hands, and I finally addressed Emmett. Alright, more like I finally asked him what the fuck was up with his shorts. Maybe I asked a little nicer than that, but whatever.

"Oh, these?" He grinned a huge grin. "You like?"

I choked on a laugh, unable to stop it from bubbling out. It wasn't really good to stop laughter though, was it? It was like holding back a sneeze or something. And I was _all_ _for_ sneezing and everything, so I didn't _actually_, ya know, _try_ to keep the laugh from bubbling out.

I avoided answering Emmett's question. "Why are you wearing them?"

"Cause we're going biking," a voice said behind me. I turned slightly to see Jasper, still wearing the same shirt with a ton of monkeys on it, but now in a pair of shorts very similar to Emmett's. Only Jasper's had a blue stripe down the side.

Starting to see a bit of a pattern, I focused back on Rosalie. Her shorts had a red stripe. More than a little startled, more than I cared to admit actually, my gaze traveled to Alice next. Even _she_ had the same kind of black biking shorts on. Black spandex shorts? Hell if I knew the proper name for them.

Alice's had a yellow stripe.

"Biking?" I asked, because, well, it was all I could think to say.

"Yeah, like Lance Armstrong. Except we won't be quite so hunched over cause we're not racing."

"Or at least don't plan on it." Rosalie nudged Emmett in the side, smirking.

"Bella should come with us," Jasper said, still behind me.

"Oh yes!" Alice piped up from beside me. "That's a great idea, Jazz!" Jazz? I mouthed the apparent nickname to myself, wondering if Jasper was just a huge fan of jazz or...Oh. Jasper. As in "jazz-per".

_Duh, Bella._

My confusion of the nickname almost kept me from noticing how lame Alice's _surprise_ was over having just realized Jasper's idea. Unfortunately, "almost" wasn't "did", and so I got to hear all of the painful acting.

To stop the awful madness, I wondered aloud, "Is everyone going?"

"Everyone?" Alice repeated.

"Yeah, everyone as in...the other three people who are in this building yet not standing here with the rest of us?"

"Ohhh! No no. Sue and Charlie aren't going. They usually go out to eat instead of going with us on our shenanigans."

I forced myself not to sigh. So that meant Edward was going.

Yip-frickin-pee.

Wait, that sounded wrong.

Yip-frickin-ee.

Much better.

"So..." Alice pretended to hee and haw, mull it over. As if. The little sneaker. "Do you want to go with us, Bella?" She looked away from her feet now, staring me in the face. "It'll totally be a ton of fun!" she tacked on as though that would cinch the deal for me.

The thing was...on most Sundays, Jake and I drove to the reservation about fifteen miles from Forks, where we grew up and where our parents and a bunch of other relatives still lived. I'd have liked to have been able to say some Sundays we were too busy to make it, but that would have been a complete lie. Because we _did _go every Sunday. It was like a ritual for us, our parents, and whatever other family happened to join us too.

I couldn't even remember the last time I'd missed a Sunday.

So here it was, the choice. Go with my brother, whom I lived with, to spend some time with my family, who I saw all the time and had lived with for a good long while, or go with some new friends to do something I'd never done before?

Tough decision.

"Oh, um, well, yeah I guess I will." I smiled decidedly at the end of my fumbling sentence. "I have to make a phone call first though."

"Great! Just meet us at the Burger King across the way," Alice indicated vaguely with a thumb in some direction, "okay?"

I nodded as all of us (regrettably including Edward) walked outside together, leaving Charlie and Sue inside to lock up. When we'd parted ways, me standing in front of the store and the others strolling across the street, I pulled out my phone. Eh, screw making an actual phone _call_. That was what text messages had been invented for, right?

_I'm gonna go with some of the other employees here to do something today, so explain to everyone that I'm sorry I'm not there and stuff, alright?_

_Whatcha gonna do?**  
****__Big Bad Wolf__******_

His next text came while I was still writing my reply to his first one.

_And with whom again?**  
****__Big Bad Wolf__******_

No one would ever believe Jake was my younger brother without first seeing our birth certificates. Sighing, I deleted a couple words to retype some others.

_I'm going bicycle riding. And with the other people who work here. Ya know, um, Alice and Jasper and stuff? I've mentioned them._

_BICYCLE RIDING? You? Bells, I love you, but you were the neighborhood kid who could never achieve bike balance without training wheels.**  
****__Big Bad Wolf__******_

My cheeks flamed at the memory, my teeth biting into my lip at the simultaneous memory of the teasing I'd endured from kids not as loving and understanding as my siblings.

_Yes, well, I'm hoping I've gotten over that. Just tell everyone the deal, ok? You can make funny Bella-bike jokes if you want. Love you and bye!_

I put a ridiculous smiley and heart at the end, knowing Jake hated those "ooey-gooey girly-type" (his words, not mine) things.

_K, love you too and have fun!**  
****__Big Bad Wolf__******_

Slipping my phone into my jeans pocket, I made my way across the street.

Only fast food restaurants could smell so delicious before you even entered them. Well, maybe Chinese too. And pizza. But only if it was a good pizza place.

"Bella!" Emmett waved me over from a circular booth in the corner. I decided to order after finding out what the game plan of the whole biking thing was. I still knew precious little about what, exactly, it was we were doing other than something that involved riding a bicycle.

I slid in next to Alice, who handed me a wrapped lump with a shrug of her shoulders. "I hope you like them just the way they're made."

"What?" I glanced down at the wrapped lump, realization dawning. "Oh, yeah, that's fine."

Chewing, she made a 'mmm'ing noise as she bumped my arm. I looked down at the container of half-eaten fries she was offering me.

You _know _someone likes you when they offer to share their French fries.

Smiling, I took a couple and stuffed them into my mouth quickly. _Unnngh, grease and salt._

"Alice, who do I..." My gaze traveled around the table a little nervously as I tried to verbalize what I meant.

"If you're trying to say what I think you're trying to say, forget it. It's like three bucks, Bella. If I can't spend three measly little bucks on my new friend, I need to have a talk with my parents." She winked playfully at the end of her sentence, taking another bite of her burger to signal that was the end of that conversation.

Well, _that_ was a little bit weird.

But who was I to refuse a free burger and fries from a friend?

Not the sort of person who did, that was for sure.

There was a pile of condiments sitting in the center of the circular table, so, liking a little something extra on my burger, I grabbed a pack of mayonnaise.

"Excuse me."

I glanced up mid-squirt, freezing.

"That was mine."

I fought the urge to roll my eyes at Edward. "This?" I held up the now-half-empty packet of white stuff. "This one particular packet of mayo?"

His voice was stiff. "Yes."

My eyes pointedly traveled to allll the other packages of mayo lying on the table. "You're sure it was this one and not that one over there?" I nodded my head toward the condiment pile as I commanded my hands not to shoot any mayonnaise straight into his stupid, stupid eyes.

"Yes. I'm quite sure. Seeing as how I'd already opened that one when I got up to let Rose back in."

I thought over it briefly before I realized, aw shit, it _had_ been open. "Well...sorry!" I shrugged, smiling 'apologetically' and not sorry at all. Picking up another mayonnaise, I quickly opened it and flicked it (kind of nicely) across the table to him. "There ya go. Happy?"

He didn't answer.

Really though, what kind of a man freely and openly admitted that he actually liked/ate mayonnaise?

_Hmm, maybe he's gay._

I stared at Edward (stealthily of course, like James Bond. Or...Jane Bond. Yeah.) as I contemplatively chewed my food.

Nah, he'd checked out my ass; not gay.

_Bi maybe? Could bi guys be girly-gay-ish but still be into girl parts?_

Changing my mental subject, I turned slightly in my seat.

"So, what's the plan, Stan?" I asked an Alice with her lips wrapped around a straw.

"If you're not one of those people that thinks it's completely gross," Alice pushed her Burger King plastic cup toward me, two straws poking out of the top, "it's orange Fanta."

I smiled at her again, enjoying this new friendship that had kind of sprouted up out of nowhere. "Thanks." I took a grateful sip to wash away all the salt.

"And the plan," Alice continued, "is after we finish here, you can carpool with me or Edward to where we'll be biking. The bikes are already there cause it's a sort of rental place, but I know the owner so we got 'em for free." And here she grinned at me, a small piece of lettuce sticking between her left canine and the nearest molar.

I coughed at her, covertly gesturing a finger to my teeth. She jumped, snapping her mouth closed in what looked like absolute horror as she glanced around the table to see if anyone had seen. I couldn't help but laugh, albeit as quietly as I could manage so as not to embarrass her any further. When she'd apparently disposed of the lettuce fragment, she resumed talking.

"Uh, anyway. The place has these trails: one for the nature bicyclist, which is like through the woods on a hiking trail and stuff, another for the city slicker, which takes you randomly around Forks on sidewalks, and the last for an undecided, which is the first meeting the second halfway. We'll decide later which we want to take, and then...we just ride."

Since I was chewing, I only nodded my affirmation that the plan sounded fine and dandy.

"You gonna eat those?"

After offering them to me so see if I wanted anymore, which I didn't, Alice laughed and pushed her carton of fries toward Emmett. And that was when I realized the blonde between him and Edward had been rather quiet the entire time.

Sneaking what I hoped was a non-I'm-totally-looking-straight-at-you-to-figure-you-out look at Rosalie, I wondered if she just hated me, or if she really _was_ naturally this quiet.

_Could be both_.

"Well...are we ready to go?" Jasper glanced around at everyone at the table, searching for nods or head shakes. He got nods.

"I'm gonna ride with you, Alice," I told her when we'd all skooched out from the booth and were heading for the restaurant's door.

She grinned in response before raising her voice unnecessarily loud. "Last chance for bathrooms unless you're a fan of outhouses!"

Since everyone was in front of Alice, and me, they all turned at her statement. The three men lifted their eyebrows in absolutely comic concurrence. I slapped a hand over my mouth in a vain attempt to cover up my laughter.

Alice flushed. "Alright. Rosalie and Bella, last chance for bathroom."

Still giggling, I shook my head, as did Rosalie.

Alice's hands flew up in exasperation. "Well _fine _then! _I _have to go!" She disappeared into the bathroom while we all just stood there. Awkwardly.

"Dude, I kinda want pie now," Emmett said out of nowhere.

Edward nodded at Emmett, licking his lips. Not that I was watching Edward's lips. "Pie."

Jasper gave Emmett a fist bump. "Pie!"

They scurried (well, not really, but it was fun to simile-lize them with mice scurrying toward a wedge of cheese) off to the ordering counter.

"Have you seen Emmett's ear?"

Surprised, because I _may_ have forgotten Rosalie was standing there since the girl was so freaking quiet, I did a 180 so that I was facing her.

"What?" Was she referring to the size of Emmett's ears? What the fuck? Wasn't she supposed to be his girlfriend? I mean, _damn_!

It almost sounded to me like she stifled a laugh, which rose my anger level further. I may not have known Emmett very well, but I already liked the guy. And for his _girlfriend_ to be poking fun at his ears behind his back was, frankly, pissing me off.

"Look at his right ear."

Before I could ask her what she meant, the guys, as well as Alice, were back.

"Pie?" Alice asked.

Edward replied, "Pie."

Now Alice pouted. "Pie?"

Jasper pulled a hand out from behind his back, a hand holding a cardboard triangle container in the universal shape of a slice of pie. "Pie."

"Pie!" Alice walked quickly over to him to accept the gift.

Emmett's eyes darted between Rosalie and I, a crease on his forehead. "Pie?"

Smiling, I declined with just a simple movement of my head.

Rosalie, on the other hand, walked up to Emmett and opened her mouth. "Pie." He took his little plastic fork, cut off a small bite of whatever kind of pie he'd gotten, and put it in her mouth. She giggled when a bit of the whip cream from the top of the pie caught on her lip and Emmett kissed it off.

"Ewww," Jasper groaned. "Let's go before we have to witness anymore PDA."

"You just wish you were gettin' some _PDA_," Emmett said, a heavy emphasis on the acronym and a smug smile all over his face. Slinging an arm around Rosalie's shoulders, he shifted to walk out the door.

A shift that gave me the _perfect_ angle to see what the hell Rosalie had been talking about before.

On the side of his face, just a little below his right ear, was a blob of what appeared to be ketchup. Now the how hell someone could be eating and get ketchup up near their ear, I didn't know. But I snickered quietly to myself nonetheless.

"Rose and I are riding with Edward," Emmett called over his shoulder since he was in the lead. He threw a wink in just to gross out Jasper, at least it seemed that way when Jasper groaned again.

Jasper, who had been heading toward what I assumed was Edward's silver car parked in the lot directly opposite The River Divot, changed course almost instantly, veering off to follow Alice. She stopped in front of a yellow convertible (hell if I knew what brand it was because, despite many of my brother and cousins and friends' aggravations, no car knowledge had ever really stuck with me) with the top down and made to unlock it.

"_This_ is your car?"

She glanced up at me, curious written all over her face. "Yeah?"

_She must be rich. She's got to be rich. Right? I mean, Alice can't be _that _much older than me, and I barely had enough money to buy my stupid truck and then keep gas in the dumb thing, let alone buy a car so new and so shiny and so pretty..._

I reached a hand out, totally intending to caress the pretty pretty car.

_No, Bella! No touching!_

Like the spaz I was, I morphed my gesture toward the car into one smoothing across the top of my hair. Awesome, just amazingly suave and cool. Yup, that was me.

"Shotgun!" Jasper called from his place several paces behind us.

My eyes flicked to Alice, hoping she could see the glint in them. She nodded so enthusiastically anyone passing by on the street might have mistaken her for a life-sized (well, sort of, haha) bobblehead. She slid into the front seat as I did the same on the other side, grinning the entire time.

Jasper finally reached us, and even though I couldn't see him, I could tell he was frowning and/or pouting. "You guys suck. I _called _shotgun."

Both Alice and I laughed.

"We're not ten anymore, Jasper. We don't have to follow the rules of shotgun," Alice said as she turned on the car with one hand and touched up her lip-gloss with the other. She revved the engine. "Are you coming, pussy?"

"Shut up, Brandon!" he said with far less venom than I think he'd intended. A second later I heard him sigh before the car shifted slightly when he climbed in.

"Alright, let's smoke this joint!" Alice called over the sound of the car and the radio, whipping out of her parking spot so fast I rocked forward in my seat before banging into the back of it. She laughed loudly, throwing her head back with it even as she came to the edge of the parking lot. "I love the virgins!"

I may or may not have started to shake in terror. Whatever.

A hand appeared from the backseat, scaring the crap out of me before I realized it was just Jasper. "Turn off this bubble-gummy garbage." He changed the radio station to something else, settling back into his seat.

"Hey! Who's driving this machine?" Alice changed the station back.

Jasper's hand appeared again, turning it to some other station than the first he'd changed it to. "What does that have to do with anything?" His hand disappeared. "This isn't the same one..." The hand was back, changing to another channel.

For a second I forgot my fear that Alice and her driving might kill me, instead focusing on holding back a laugh at the childish antics of the other two adults in the car with me.

"It's _my_ car! Don't be a butt just because you couldn't sit in the front."

Jasper didn't answer, tuning to another station again. "Is it just me or is there too much give-me-a-headache rock around?"

He apparently passed some song Alice liked, because she started to bounce a little. "Ooh ooh, that! Leave it there!"

Jasper changed the station.

"Hey! Put it back!"

"No," he responded rather petulant-sounding.

"Jasper Carson Whitlock!"

"You're not my mom." He kept flipping through stations.

"Oh now you _know_ you can't hear what song is playing when you do that!"

"I'm not going to listen to the damn Backstreet Boys even _more_." He paused in his station-flipping, looking at Alice calculatingly now. "Have you ever considered that perhaps you have an obsession?"

Alice lifted her chin. "Maybe."

That was the last straw for me; I couldn't keep it in anymore. I burst out laughing, bending forward in my seat as much as my seatbelt would allow as I giggled and laughed and a cross-between-ed.

"Is she laughing at me?" I dimly heard Alice ask.

"No, I think she's laughing at _us_."

"Well, serves you right for being such a baby."

"I wasn't being a baby! I'm just sick of the Backstreet Boys. We listened to them the entire way on the last trip."

"Ya know, you can call them BSB if you want."

"Never. Ever. In my life. Not even if you paid me with seven blowjobs a day for the rest of my life even when I'm in a nursing home and too old to get it up properly."

A whole new round of my laughter started at their back and forth and Jasper's last comeback. I belatedly realized my throat and stomach were starting to hurt, but hell if I truly cared.

"Jasper," Alice sounded like she whimpered. "Mental images; nursing home BJ's. Have a care."

I looked up through my teary eyes in time to see her shoot an 'I'm-sickened-now' pout his way, and him respond with only a shrug.

"Oh hell no!" My chuckles having receded some, I jumped at Alice's sudden outburst. Her hand dashed toward the radio before another one, obviously Jasper's because it wasn't mine and, well, no one else was in the car, shot out and grabbed hers. "Jasper," she growled.

"Hmm?" he asked innocently, an evil-smile lilt to his voice.

"Cut the shit and let go of my hand unless your preferred death is in a car crash. Today."

"You can drive with one hand and you know it so shut up."

Alice squirmed in her seat. "We are _not_ listening to Jimmy Buffet."

"Ow." Out of the corner of my eye (alright, maybe I was really glancing between the two of them like a tournament tennis match, but that sounded creepier and stalker-ish-ier than saying 'out of the corner of my eye'), I saw Jasper dramatically put the hand not still restraining Alice's from changing the station to his heart as if he'd just been stabbed there. "That hurts, baby."

Alice's squirming stopped for a second, and my ears perked up. 'Baby' eh? In my head I giggled like a teenage girl. The song ended at the same time that Jasper's free hand reached for the radio and Alice slammed on the brakes, forcefully pushing both Jasper and I back in our seats.

"Jeez Louise, Alice! Don't you know how dangerous those kind of maneuvers are?"

She switched the radio to something she obviously wanted to hear, flippantly replying, "I looked in every mirror, Whit; it was all clear."

"You know I hate when you call me that girly-sounding name."

"'Course I do."

"You're mean."

I wasn't the only one laughing that time. But then I _was_ the only one still laughing when Jasper leaned forward and changed the radio station again.

Alice growled something that came out sounding like "Arjah!" before jamming her finger onto the off button of the radio.

It was quiet.

Too quiet.

Like, serial-killer-coming-up-the-stairs-and-tiptoeing-to-your-room-while-you're-hiding-in-the-closet quiet.

"Hey Alice, do you ever wonder if your fancy, shiny convertible here just practically screams 'Pull me over and give me a ticket!' to cops?"

I watched as her face turned slightly rosy, making me highly interested now in what had originally just been a way to break the quiet.

"Well, uh, sometimes I—"

"Check the glove box," a voice piped up from the back seat.

"No! Don—" But her objections were too late. I already had the glove box open.

"Alice!" I gasped. "You've got like..." I trailed off as my fingers combed through the piles of speeding tickets. "A _ton_ of tickets in here!"

"And those are just the ones she can't flirt her way out of getting."

I glanced over my shoulder at Jasper to find his arms casually thrown over the back of his seat and a smug smile making itself at home on his face.

"Shut up, Jasper!" Alice screeched in embarrassment. "You're making me sound like some kind of—"

"Not sound like," I cut her off, "you_ are_ a criminal!" Looking away from the glove box, I focused on her red face. "Oh em gee, will you be my BFF?"

"What?" she gasped.

Unable to help my giggling, I asked, "Did you think I'd be horrified at your lack of paying for your speeding tickets? I'm not that much of a goody-two-shoes." I attempted a wink at her, hoping it didn't come off as though I had something in my eye or a nervous tick. "Though, admittedly, I'd never have the guts to not pay 'em. Or go over the speed limit. If I had a car that allowed me to go over the speed limit, that is."

She took her eyes off the road to look at me. "You are a fascinating woman, Miss Swan."

"Thank you?"

"Thank _you_!"

"For what?"

"Yeah, for what?" Jasper asked.

"Hey!" I switched my focus to frowning-slash-glaring at him, but he just smiled.

"Shut up, Jay," Alice admonished him, and I stared at her (only slightly, mind you) for all the many names/versions of his name she seemed to call him.

_Did she have that many different names she called everyone on a regular basis?_

_Oh shit. Am I suddenly going to become Iz or Izzy? Or, Batman save me, something like Naws or Swannie or, oh jeez, Swannie sounds like Swami._

_Oh my gosh, I'm going to become Swami. Everyone's going to call me Swami and there's not a damn thing I can do about it!_

Thankfully, or not I guess, depending on how you looked at it, Alice's words cut off my insane inner worrying. "I was thanking her for coming with us, you nitwit." She turned to me again, and I fought not to be nervous that her eyes were only flitting back to the road as she looked at me. "Thank you for coming to hang with us, Bella."

I nodded with an 'of course!' smile, grateful she hadn't called me Swami.

"And for putting up with us." She shot Jasper an accusing look in the rearview mirror.

He seemed to completely ignore her, choosing instead to whine, "Are we there yet?"

Alice sighed overdramatically, glancing over to me again. "Like I said, thank you."

Not a minute later we were slowing down, easing over to a building on the side of the road in a fairly large clearing that was a welcome break from all the trees. The building was surrounded by short grass on three sides except the front, which was covered in dusty dirt that kicked up as Alice parked in the grass.

"This is it?" Somehow, and for some reason, I'd been expecting something...different.

"Yep!" Alice unbuckled, got out.

Jasper thumped the back of my seat. "Yo. You getting out?"

"Hmm?" I stopped gazing around at our new environment long enough for Jasper's words to process. "Oh. Yeah."

"Where's Edward?" Alice asked, twirling her keys around her index finger.

_Was that a rhetorical question, or was she really asking if we saw Edward anywhere? I mean, there _does _seem to be quite a crowd, so maybe she wants us to look around for him with her. Of course, she _could_ also just be wondering aloud and not actually mean_—

"Did he leave before us?" Jasper saved me from my ridiculous thoughts.

Alice shrugged. "I don't know. I wasn't really paying attention..."

"Oh, riiight," Jasper realized sarcastically, "you were too busy ignoring my shotgun."

"Isn't that him?" I interrupted, pointing.

On the other side of the building, parked just like we were ('cept maybe a little sloppier), was what looked to me to be Edward's silver car. It kind of looked like that was him, too, sitting on the hood of it facing whatever lay beyond the building. And hey, was that Emmett with his hands on either side of someone, Rosalie, I'd imagine, on the side of the car?

"Is he _smoking_?" I heard Alice shriek as she practically went stomping across the distance separating us from the silver car. Well, if you can run while stomping. Maybe she was power stomping? Either way, both Jasper and I took off after the cloud of dust that was her.

Since we were really kind of jogging, we caught up to her just as she reached the car, bypassing Emmett and Rosalie and heading straight for the front of the car.

"_Are you smoking?_" she screeched at Edward while Jasper and I just stood there. I turned my head to see if Jasper knew what was up, finding him gone rather than standing beside me. _Well then_, I thought to myself, _guess _I'm_ the only one standing here while Alice's screeches at Edward._

_Wait, Alice screeching at Edward._

I grinned to myself.

_This could prove very entertaining._

"What? Jeez, Alice, calm down." Edward put a hand on her shoulder, looking for all the world to keep the petite woman from attacking him. "It's a pixie stick," he finally said, holding the white stick up in his free hand.

"Oh." Alice's...whatever it was seemed to deflate at his words. "Well, good." She took a step back and crossed her arms, a smile returning to her face. "How long have you all been here?"

Edward shrugged, tossing back more of the flavored sugar from the stick in his hand. "Not long, I guess."

"You guys ready?" Emmett called from the back of the car, where it looked he, Rosalie, and Jasper were all hiding.

"Yep," Edward called back, climbing smoothly off the hood of his car.

Confused and feeling a bit out of place now, I followed behind Alice, unsure what we were doing next or when we'd actually get to the whole, ya know, _bike riding_ part.

"Whoa whoa whoa," I heard from behind me before the air shifted as Edward strode by me. "Alice! Is she wearing _that_? I thought it took you guys so long because you'd stopped somewhere to find her something."

What the hell? "What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"

Edward spared me a quick glance. "If you don't know, obviously you've never done this before."

"Done what? What the _hell _is wrong with what I'm wearing?" Not thirty seconds ago I was wondering if the whole asshole bullshit thing was just temporary and maybe now he'd act like a normal person, but oh hoh, how _wrong _I'd been!

"Alice, you _can't_ be serious."

She merely rolled her eyes. "Take a chill pill, Mister Whinypants." Now she held up a bag I hadn't noticed in her hand before. _How had I missed that? Jeez, time to go to the optometrist._ "I swear," she mumbled grumpily but still with an undeniable hint of fondness, as she walked away from Edward, "it's like I'm friends with a bunch of whiny kindergartners."

_Well gee, I hope that doesn't include me..._

I snickered to myself despite it all, even Edward's odd dislike of my jeans and shirt. It wasn't as if they were ratty, holey jeans or anything. They were fairly new, actually. And it wasn't as if the shirt had a saying on it that was too complex for his asshole self to understand. It was just a plain old shirt.

_He's such a weirdo._

"Bella!" Alice called, making me look up and my thoughts leave Edward behind. "Are you coming?"

Huh? Oh, well, I guess I was supposed to follow her...wherever she was going. "Yes?" She waited while I walked to her side. "Um, where are we going?"

"To change."

Oh yeah, because _that _makes absolutely perfect sense.

"Change...what? And why are we changing whatever we're changing?" I had a sudden, irrational urge to apologize for asking so many questions and not knowing what was going on.

She laughed. "Bella, do you really think you'll be comfortable riding a bike, for longer than a leisurely ride around the cul-de-sac, in jeans? It's not exactly pleasant," she lowered her voice slightly, "if you know what I mean."

"Oh." Yeah, I was a genius.

"Before we left the store, I picked you up a pair of biking shorts," she raised the hand holding her bag, "like what everyone else is wearing."

I glanced over my shoulder, suddenly remembering that all the others were in practically matching spandex-y shorts with the stripes varying in color for each different person. Yellow, red, gray, blue, I noticed Edward's green-striped ones for the first time and dimly wondered if they got to pick the color they wanted or if Alice had done it. Jasper's eyes were blue, Rosalie's nails were red, Edward's eyes were green, Alice's car was yellow, Emmett's...Emmett's nothing was gray.

And I'd been _so _close to making the colors make sense too! Shit.

"Do you want a stall, or are you not that shy?" Alice teased, and I belatedly realized we were now standing inside a bathroom.

As my answer, I unbuttoned my jeans and toed off my sneakers.

"You have lovely legs," I heard Alice sigh what sounded like wistfully before I looked up from pulling my jeans off.

I looked at her questioningly, not saying anything.

"What?" She arched an eyebrow at me. "It's not like I'm hitting on your or anything, sheesh." She rolled her eyes playfully. "I'm just admiring your legs. I've got rather short ones, as it happens, so I tend to admire those with longer ones."

"Yeah, but I think you'd kinda look weird with longer legs..." I mused, mostly to myself. "And it's not like I'm _that_ much taller than you anyway. If you want to admire some legs, check out Rosalie's."

Alice laughed. "Oh I know. But see, Rose is built for those kind of legs. The fact that you're actually close to my height is what makes me love your legs." She winked easily at me.

"Yeah, well," I moved to cover my legs protectively, "they're mine so don't even think of stealing them." Knowing I probably seemed stupid but not caring anyway, I jokingly stuck my tongue out at her.

She chuckled before saying, "Thanks, by the way."

"Hmm?"

"For thinking I'd look weird with longer legs. I always feel so short, and sometimes inconsequential because of it, and like longer legs would cure that. And what you said is probably one of the nicest, yet strangely worded, compliments I've ever received."

I didn't know what to say to that. Had no freaking clue, actually. But, maybe somehow sensing I was rather speechless at the moment, Alice pulled something from the bag, saving me.

"I'm pretty sure this is your size. I had to wing it, but I think I aced it anyway." She smiled as she handed me a pair of black shorts looking much the same as every other pair I'd seen being worn today. Except mine had a bright purple stripe on them.

I started to pull them on, wondering how to word what I wanted to say. "Um, Alice, I don't...that is, there's no need to...I mean, er, I don't need to be bought all sorts of things or whatever to like you and want to, uh, hang out with you, and I don't want you to think that you have to."

"Oh sweetie," Alice patted the side of my upper arm, almost my shoulder, smiling kindly at me, "I know. But I like buying my friends stuff. I don't do it because I _have _to. I do it because _want _to."

"Alright, I just...I wanted you to know I don't need to be bought. Though really, the mere peek into the goings on of this, group I guess you'd call it, is payment enough." I wanted to wink, but was afraid there'd already been too much winking going on. So I could only hope that she'd be able discern the humor and joking in my voice.

She laughed, as I'd meant her to. "It is quite the dynamic, isn't it?" I nodded, pulling my shoes back on. "Oh! So the shorts fit, right?"

"Yeah, they fit good. Thanks for them."

"I've got such size-guessing skills. And anytime, Bella, anytime."

Jasper and Edward both had pixie sticks when we returned from the bathroom, and Emmett had resumed his position with Rosalie against the car.

"Hey, Alice," Jasper called, "look, I'm eating a pixie." His face broke out into a huge grin immediately, as though it'd been there all along and he'd simply been hiding it or something.

To my surprise Alice flushed, almost her entire face turning red.

"Isn't that lovely?" she replied in a weaker voice than her normal one, the sarcasm barely evident at all. "Where'd Emmett and Rose go?"

"We're over here," came Rosalie's kind-of breathless reply from the far other side of Edward's car.

"Yeah, why do you think _we're_ way over here," Jasper muttered.

Alice pretended Jasper hadn't said anything. "I'll go get the bikes. Be right back."

"Where's she going?" I asked like an idiot, really not wanting to stand there with Edward and Jasper with Rosalie and Emmett making out just a few feet away.

"To. Get. The. Bikes," Edward enunciated every word.

I rolled my eyes at him, unable to fight giving in to that urge. "I _know_ that. I meant _where_ is she going to get the bikes?"

"Her 'uncle'," Jasper shrugged as he put air quotes around _uncle_.

"'Uncle'?" I questioned, mirroring Jasper's air quotes.

"It just means that we're not really related by blood," Alice said, coming up behind me, "but we're closer than if we were." She grinned at me before turning her grin onto the guy whose arm hers was currently laced through.

One look at him and all I could think was "Cheech." Granted, an older-ish and taller-ish Cheech. Not only did he kind of resemble him in the face area, but he had the beginnings of the same kind of drooping mustache, hair on the sides of his head but not anywhere near the forehead, and obvious Hispanic descent. His hair couldn't decide if it wanted to be gray or not, his face was lined with signs of a good life, and he wore a dirty white tank top, cargo shorts, and, laughably, pink flip flops.

Alice unlatched their arms to gesture. "Bella, this is my Uncle Felix. Uncle Felix, this is my friend Bella."

"Hi, nice to meet ya," he gave me a kind of salute-slash-nod-slash-wave thing. His voice wasn't what I expected. Less Spanish accent, more California drawl.

I smiled. "You too."

"Well," he turned to Edward and Jasper, using both his hands to simultaneously flick Edward's ear and tug on Jasper's, "are you wimps ready?"

Edward and Jasper flinched back, but they had smiles on their faces.

"We can take you anywhere, anytime, old man," Edward taunted as Jasper mock punched at Felix.

"You wish, losers." Felix rocked back on his heels, pretending to dodge one of Jasper's punches.

"Yeah, we're not the losers wearing girly shoes there, mister," Jasper joked with a straight face.

"Hey, I've seen you in cowgirl boots boy, so shut up."

Jasper blushed. "They're called cow_boy_ boots!"

Felix waved him off with one hand, absently scratching at his sorta-Buddha-belly with the other. "I don't know why you hang out with these chumps, Ali O'Malley," he told Alice, his face betraying his words. It was quite obvious in their behavior and mannerisms that they liked him and he approved of them as good company for his 'niece'.

"Me neither, me neither," Alice teased, snatching the pixie stick Jasper still held in his hand and finishing it in one toss back.

"Hey! Where are the bikes?" Emmett sauntered out from the side of the car, arms spread wide in confusion.

"Over there, Don Juan," Felix motioned behind him with a thumb.

"Sweet." He nodded approvingly. "Well, we gonna get this show on the road?"

As Emmett started walking toward where Felix had indicated, slapping a hand on Felix's back as he passed, Rosalie appeared behind him, smoothing a finger across her lips and leaving a shiny gloss in its wake.

"What?" she asked, glancing around at everyone, totally not playing the 'innocent' card very well.

Jasper's face scrunched up again, and he followed Emmett with a simple, "Ew."

Felix wrapped an arm around Alice's shoulders, kissing the top of her head lovingly. "You be careful out there, Ali O'Malley. I've got to get back to work."

"We will be. Thanks again, Uncle Felix."

He nodded. "Anytime. Good to meet you, Bella," he waved a hand in my direction before turning his eyes on Rosalie. "Stay beautiful, Flower," he said, winking at her. "Later, Pretty Boy," he called to Edward, halfway to having his back on us as he retraced his steps the way he'd come.

Edward grinned, clearly used to this. "Prettier than you since '84."

Felix's laugh echoed behind him before Jasper's slightly-exasperated voice cut through.

"Are you _coming_?" He was looking back over his shoulder at Alice, though I supposed he'd meant all of us.

Alice responded really quickly. "Yep!" Too quickly. Hmm...

"So have we decided what trail we want to take?" Rosalie finally piped up as we strolled toward where Emmett and Jasper were standing.

"I dunno, have we?"

"Hilarious, Alice."

Alice let out a small chuckle. "Well, _we_ might have decided on something while you and Emmett were...indisposed." Her eyes twinkled, having the same effect as though she were winking.

Rosalie pulled what came off as self-consciously on her button-up shirt, speeding up her pace until she stood beside Emmett and Jasper.

I don't know what I'd been imagining, but somehow, I'd conjured a more "deathtrap"-like picture in my head of the bikes we'd be riding. But no, the six bikes in front of me were just...regular bikes. They looked completely harmless.

"This one's yours," Jasper wheeled a black bike with purple accents to me.

Really, Alice? "Wow, Alice," I laughed, though it sounded far more nervous than I'd wanted. "How much trouble did you go through to orchestrate these color coded outfits and bikes?"

She shrugged. "None, really. Uncle Felix is a bit meticulous about how he organizes his bikes, and I just politely asked him to please get six from certain colors."

I nodded knowingly. "Wrapped around your little finger like a second skin, isn't he?"

"Oh you know it!" she laughed.

The bikes all looked almost exactly the same except for their different-colored accents. Different-colored accents that perfectly matched with the stripe of the bike rider's shorts. I shook my head again, amused by everything.

"Got the gear!" Emmett called, coming from the only non-outhouse-sized building on the lot to stand next to all of us and the bikes. In one arm he had water bottles, which I presumed would go in the holders between the two pipes that made up the area below the bikes' seats, and in the other—

"Helmets?" I questioned, despite myself worrying about my hair's awful tendency to take the whole 'helmet hair' thing a little too seriously. Another thing I'd been mercilessly teased for when it came to biking in my younger days...

Emmett tossed one to each of the five us. All of them were black.

"Helmets are the law, Bella," Edward intoned seriously, eyes cool and fixed on me.

Thinking of how he'd gotten here so much earlier than us, I shot back, in the same tone he'd used except with a bit more mocking, "So are speed limits, Edward."

"The helmets are just for safety," Alice interrupted before Edward could say anything back to me. "Better a helmet than your brains all over the pavement, right?"

Shrugging, I squished the thing on top of my hair, pleas from my hair ringing in my head. It fit comfortably enough thanks to it having all its pads on the inside. I strained the side straps to reach under my chin.

"Unless you have some sort of amazing shrinking head, I'd suggest a simple _loosening_ of the straps."

I glared over at Edward for his comment, the glare turning into a laugh when I saw how dorky he looked in his 'Bike me!' helmet complete with streaks of blue ice on the side.

"What?" he hissed, eyes narrowed at me.

I loosened the straps and shook my head at him. "Oh, nooothing." My voice was airy and completely false to the words. I mean, really, who has a 'Bike me!' helmet?

A horrifying thought occurred to me, and I quickly snatched off my helmet to check. _Biker Bitch_ was scrawled in dark green in a bad-ass looking font across the front of my black helmet. I grinned.

_Damn right._

Putting the helmet back on, I carefully led the belts toward each other, afraid of pinching myself. Of course, pinching myself with them was exactly what I did.

"Fuck!"

Five pairs of eyes in five sets of biking attire (minus fanny packs, thank goodness) and five helmets turned toward me with matching astonishment written all over their faces.

I blushed the color of a ripened strawberry, eyes darting back and forth at nothing in particular as I explained, "Pinched myself."

Five looks of 'ahhh, totally been there, done that, and that shit _hurts_' replaced the astonishment.

"Aww," Emmett teased, "you want me to kiss it and make it better?" He puckered his lips at me, still unable to hide his shit-eating grin.

"Yeah, I don't think a kiss from you would really make it all better..."

He frowned as shocked insult took up residence on his face. Rosalie barked out a laugh and held up her hand.

"_Nice!_" Our hands met each other halfway in the satisfying smack of a high five. I grinned widely; she didn't hate me. Maybe she possessed a personality that had her quiet most of the time, or just quiet around strangers. Not everyone was a social seahorse, after all. Or maybe it just took her awhile before she decided a person was worth talking to?

The reasoning didn't matter to me, I was more focused now on how my hand stung.

_Shit _she had strong hands!

"Let's _riiiide_!" Emmett whooped enthusiastically.

"Wait. Wait!" Alice interrupted before he could speed off as though he were in a race and determined to win first so he could get the ten thousand dollar prize. "We still haven't decided on a trail to take."

Rosalie crossed her arms. "Oh we haven't, have we?" Her helmet read _Biker Beauty_, instantly making me wonder if Emmett had actually picked out the helmets.

I quickly scanned around the rest of the group. Alice's said _Biking Brat_ and Jasper's read _Biking Boy_. When I saw Emmett's, I still couldn't figure out if he'd picked them, or if Felix had.

_Bikey the Buff_ was proudly displayed on the front of Emmett's helmet, fire trails on the side.

Whoever had made these helmets certainly had a healthy dose of funny in their bones. I giggled to myself, not even trying to keep it in. _Bikey the Buff_. Come _on_!

"Well since Bella," I glanced up at my name, listening to what Edward was saying now, "seems awfully amused by our trail picking decision making, maybe _she_ should pick."

"Wha—? Oh! No, no. It's fine. You all...you can pick."

"No, really Bella. Since you find us so laughable, pick."

I glared at Edward, wishing he'd go back to the ass who didn't talk to me, but at least couldn't be as much of an ass if he wasn't talking to me.

"Pick," he commanded in a deep voice.

"No." I lifted my chin like I was fourteen and disobeying my father again. "I don't take orders from _you_."

He seemed affronted. "What?"

Strike that, he seemed confused.

"Seriously, what is so hard to understand about that?"

Rosalie butted in just as Edward opened his mouth. "Well I think we should take the indecisive one. That way if someone doesn't like the nature, maybe they'll like the sidewalks. And vice versa."

Alice nodded. "Good thinking, Rose."

Frozen, I could only watch as they all hitched a leg easily over their bikes and took their 'we're about to ride off, not into the sunset cause the sun isn't setting, but we're about to ride off anyway' stances.

Why, _why_ did I think this was a good idea?

I picked up one unsteady leg, supporting all my weight on my other unsteady one and my unsteady arms as I aimed for the pedal on the other side. Overall, I was just plain unsteady.

Annnd the pedal was missed.

I groaned as I kind of fell onto my bike seat.

_Can vahjayjays bruise? Cause I think I just severely injured mine._

_Alright. Okay. I can recover from this. It only hurts a wee little bit. I will _not _let this stupid bike beat me. Try numero two-o._

I got the pedal the second time, trying in pathetic vain to keep my bike steady as I put both feet on the bike. Why was this so hard? Other people learned to ride bikes when they were five years old! And here I was, a twenty-three-year-old woman with a college degree, living on her own, not a virgin, and yet I couldn't even ride a stinkin' bicycle.

Could I ride a scooter? Yes.

Could I skate? Yes.

Could I _ice_ skate? Yes.

Ride a bicycle? No.

The stupid metal contraption wobbled unsteadily (_I'm really beginning to hate that word..._) beneath me. And like the scared idiot I was, I put a foot on the ground, afraid I'd tip over and embarrass myself even more than I was now.

_Is the person who invented the bicycle still alive today? Cause I _so_ wanna murder him. Her. Them. Nooo, it. Yes. The inventor of the bicycle _must _have been an it! A very very evil and cruel it._

"Whoa, are you okay?" A rather nice-looking forearm shot out and held my unsteady bike steady. I recognized the band on the arm instantly.

'_Fuck off and mind your own beeswax!_' I wanted to tell Edward, but instead I gritted out, "Fine."

"You don't look fine."

_Gee Edward, you're so nice and kind, will you marry me?_

"Hey! Hold up a sec!" he called to the others, who'd pedaled a couple yards in front of us.

"No!" I hissed. "What are you doing?"

"Here, I'll keep it steady while you put your feet on the pedals."

"I do _not_ need your help! It's not like this is a horse and you can just hold the reins like a white knight while I sit back and ride!" Pissed, I swatted his hand away, refusing to look up to see if the others were staring in laughter at me. "Let go!"

"You're going to fall," he answered smugly.

"And you're not going to keep me from falling!"

He said something in response that I didn't hear, the anger in my head so loud I could barely hear my own words, let alone his.

Edward didn't remove his steadying hand. But did I yell at him again to do so? No.

_Better to just let him have his stupid way than draw even _more _attention to yourself_, my brain reasoned even as I called it on its bullshit. His hand was actually helping me get my bearings, keeping the bike solid while I got into pedaling position.

_I can do this. I can do this. You just keep pedaling. Just keep pedaling, just keep pedaling._

"You got it?" Edward murmured beside me, his hand not holding my bike hovering behind my back. I could only tell it was there because it was so close, warmth radiating off it and into my spine.

Apparently he thought I couldn't even _sit _on the stupid bike without falling over! Fucker.

I pushed experimentally on the pedals with my feet, my hands gripping the ridged, rubbery handlebars so tightly they were turning white. My hands, not the handlebars. Edward's hand held my bike right next to my right hand, almost touching it. Surprising myself, I didn't fall straight over, instead moving a few feet forward.

_Yes! I am _not_ a completely pathetic loser!_

_I can do this!_

I almost raised an arm in the air in celebration, but remembered myself and the fact that my hand was needed, just in time. I turned to my right, intending to tell Edward and his stupid hand that I had things under control and he could release. Me, I mean. Release me. Shit. Release his hand's hold on my bike. But then I noticed that he'd moved with me, pedaling as far as I had, even with only one hand on his bike and his body partially twisted.

Smug little asshole bastard.

Wanting to show him up, I promptly pulled his hand off (probably only accomplishing the task because I caught him by surprise) and pedaled forward again.

But apparently his hand _was _actually helping me, because without it there, I fell quickly to the side almost as soon as I pushed off. It was a brief fall. I sprawled awkwardly under the bike, one leg still above and one hand still on the handlebar.

* * *

**Reviews are shiny disco balls in my day, lovely reader, so leave one purdy please! :)**


	5. Psychedelic City

**A/N: Lately time flies before I even notice. My apologies for that. Longish chapter again though. Yay?**

**Iponeddyou is wonderful. And she sends me Rob pics and speeshal wallpapers to boot!  
**

**Lemon Muffins/Muff'Nbutter is also awesome, simply because she is.**

**Disclaimer: Twilight character names, not mine. Parts of the plot based originally off of the movie The Shop Around the Corner, not mine. What's left after all the crap that's not mine and this bag of cheetos, soo mine!**

**

* * *

**

***** Bella's POV**

_But apparently his hand _was_ actually helping me, because without it there, I fell quickly to the side almost as soon as I pushed off. It was a brief fall. I sprawled awkwardly under the bike, one leg still above and one hand still on the handlebar._

"Bella!" too many voices for me to count shouted.

My exposed legs kind of stung, or at least the one underneath the bike did. And the arm I'd landed on after trying to throw it out to hinder my fall, did too. Thankfully, my head felt fine, even if my eyes did sting from tears I refused to shed and the dirt now kind of swirling everywhere.

"Oh my gosh, are you okay?"

"I tried to stop it! I swear!"

"That looked like it hurt!"

"Can you move?"

"That was _awesome_! She was all 'screw you!' and took off and _bam_!"

"I couldn't get to her in time! I saw it about to happen, but she was out of my reach! Shit!"

"Bella! Can you speak?"

"Oh my gosh! What if she's paralyzed!"

"Or brain dead!"

"This is all my fault!"

"Dude, I bet Felix is totally gonna get sued by her parents."

"This is not a time for joking! What if she's really hurt?"

"Shut uppp," I groaned to the cacophony of voices that were making my previously fine head start to ache.

"She's alive!"

"Are you okay?"

"I told you she'd be fine."

"You did no such thing!"

"I'M FINE!" I yelled, hoping that would get them to shut up.

"Where does it hurt?" someone asked, their voice moving as they, presumably, kneeled next to me. I didn't open my eyes.

"It doesn't _really_ hurt, just stings a little." The bike was lifted off of me, the leg that had been over it gently laid down next to the other by a hand. "I'll be fine. Really. I don't think I even got any cuts or anything. I'll be fine." Feeling like I'd repeated myself and that stupid 'f' word enough times, I moved to get up. What felt like ten hands helped me, making the process ridiculously easy; I felt as though I didn't do any work at all in standing up.

"Maybe we should take you to Uncle Felix's practice track first," Alice said from right beside me, her hand rubbing circles on my back. "If you still want to bike that is," she hurried on to say.

"There's a _practice track_?" _Why am I never told these things?_

"Yeah." Jasper shrugged, standing right in front of me. "If we'd known you...well, we would have mentioned it earlier if we..." He shuffled his feet, looking nervous.

"It doesn't seem like she even has any scratches or anything," I heard Edward murmur from somewhere, what sounded like awe in his voice. I glanced around, not seeing him, until I felt a touch to my calf and looked down. _Oh. There he is._ "You're sure nowhere else hurts?" he asked, eyes on my face now. "Nothing feels broken or anything?"

I shook my head no.

_Stupid idiot. Don'tcha think I'd have _said _something if anything felt broken?_

Emmett's firework-like laugh-slash-chuckle-slash-whatever came from behind me before his hand clapped me on the back of my shoulder. "This girl is _lucky_!"

_Ow. Well now my shoulder hurts, Edward._

Between Emmett and Rosalie, I'd bet my beloved stuffed-animal lamb they had one hell of a high-five.

"The practice track's just behind the building," Alice murmured as everyone else drifted away to gather the bikes. I almost protested that I could walk my own bike to this 'practice track,' but Jasper took over the task before I could get a word out.

It turned out the infamous practice track they all spoke of was actually a marginally small swatch of grass into which an oval-shaped ring had been worn.

"Yeah, Uncle Fee drove his car in circles—"

"Ovals," Edward interrupted Emmett, seemingly without thinking about it at all.

"—for hours on end to make the track."

"Really?" Curious, I looked at Emmett, now walking behind me a little. He laughed but didn't answer my question.

"Alright, Bella." Jasper walked my bike to right in front of me. "Here we are. If you fall here, it probably shouldn't hurt too much." He shrugged, looking nervous again.

Alice nodded her head firmly as she took a step back from me. "Okay. Mount it, Bella."

"Alice!"

She only giggled at Rosalie's admonishing.

Just slightly shaky now, I took up my position on the bike, fighting everything to not wobble. Alice's hand was suddenly on my upper back at the same time that her face appeared beside mine. "It's not hard, Bella; don't tell yourself that it is. You can do it. You just have to try."

I smiled weakly at her. Having an audience for this embarrassing as all get out moment was not exactly what I wanted. I understood that Alice was the one really trying the hardest to include me, to welcome me into their knit of friends, and I appreciated that more than I probably could have told her. But that didn't mean that I didn't feel like every cell of my body was screaming at me to give up and leave, to walk away from having to do this.

Cracking my jaw once, I narrowed my eyes at the track as my grip on the handlebars tightened.

"Atta girl," I heard Jasper murmur what sounded like proudly from the side opposite Alice.

_If they have faith in me that I can master this child's play activity, then I can have a little faith in myself too._

In a patient-sounding voice Alice said, "You already know what to do. You just have to learn the balance part."

_Balance. Yeah, sure, no problem. What else ya need? A solution to the eating of cows? No problem either._

"Um, pedal, Bella," Jasper said.

Oh. Right.

My feet applied pressure to the pedals, the bike moving forward steadily rather than, well, unsteadily, thanks to Alice and Jasper's steadying hands.

_Shit, I hate that word now. What's another word for steadying? Stabling, supporting, stabilizing, sturdy-ing. Wow. That's a lot of 'stuh' sounds._

"The key is to keep your balance, while pedaling and steering." Alice nodded toward where the track was about to turn for the second time (obviously, they had helped me steer through the first one). "Steer the corner," she commanded.

Still pedaling in a regular rhythm that was fast enough to keep me going, but slow enough that my balancers didn't have to jog, I twisted the handlebars.

"Whoa!" someone shouted from behind us, where I assumed the others were waiting and watching.

Alice chuckled breathily as her hand tugged my handlebars straighter again. "You don't need to turn it that far, Bella. It's subtle. Like...driving a car."

I nodded, making mental notes while chanting '_I can do this, I can do this!_'

"Yeah! That's a great analogy, Alice!" Jasper said enthusiastically a little too close to my ear. I moved my head away from his out of instinct. "Think about driving on the interstate, Bella. Your hands on the steering wheel, poised and ready and controlling. You have to keep your foot balanced on the gas at the right speed you want to go. Now your exit's coming up. You have to merge off and turn the slight corner of the exit ramp."

I hadn't realized I'd closed my eyes, imagining the scene Jasper's words painted, until he stopped speaking and I opened them again.

"You follow me?" he asked.

Smiling now, I nodded again.

His voiced sounded adorably smug. "Excellent."

The next curve was in my sights, quickly approaching. Out of nowhere Jasper's hand disappeared from my handlebars. I tensed, waiting for the fall, but his voice sidetracked me from too much panic.

"My hand wasn't doing any of the work."

_Alright, okay, he must have a point there or he wouldn't have said it. Right?_

I was about to turn and look at him, hopefully to see if he was just pulling my leg or not. Alice's hand slid lower on my back though, distracting me.

"Don't turn around. It's hard for even me to keep my course straight when I turn around."

Still unable to speak for some reason, I could only nod my head once more.

I rounded the bend, somehow managing not to kill myself, or at the very least fall off the bike, in the process. With this new angle, I could clearly see Emmett, Edward, and Rosalie standing back where we'd started. As I watched, Edward leaned to the side slightly and said something to Emmett. Something which had Emmett laughing loudly. Rosalie looked at them, confused and obviously wanting to be let in on whatever was so funny, but Emmett just shook his head at her.

Clenching my teeth together, I forced myself to keep my hands on the bike and not around Edward's long neck, stealing his breath right out of him.

_Of course_, I thought acerbically to myself. _How could I _possibly_ think he'd go ten minutes without being a jackass poking fun at the grown woman who had trouble riding a stupid bike?_

_Fucker._

Still seething just a bit, I pedaled a tad faster, taking the next curve of the practice track without hardly any effort at all. It wasn't until I'd gone across the straight section connecting the two bends that I realized Alice was no longer beside me.

Confused, I stopped the motion of my feet and legs, letting them come to rest on the ground as I glanced around me.

Alice stood back by Rosalie and the guys, now joined by Jasper, grinning smugly at me. Well, at least it kinda looked like smugness. Now, whether it was smug for me, or smug for her coaching skills, I couldn't be sure. But it was smug nevertheless.

I started back up, making it around the rest of the track with ease until I stopped before the others.

It was quiet for several beats until Alice started clapping. Mortified and embarrassed, my eyes widened as I suddenly avoided eye contact with anyone and everyone as though their eyes would give me the plague.

When the clapping had, blissfully, ended, I cleared my throat. "So, um, are we going to do this trail thing or what?" I may not have believed I could enter a bike race and win first place, but I now had the much-needed confidence to believe I could tackle one day of bike-trail riding.

Rather than answer me directly, everyone got on their respective bikes and headed back the way we'd come. This time though, as opposed to stopping anywhere in front of the store or near the cars parked in the grass, we continued past them all. After a second I noticed we were aiming for a break in the woods that looked to have been carved be a really really big cement pipe attached to the front of a tractor or something.

It took me another couple seconds before I realized our tunnel, while large, was actually only big enough for two bikers to ride side-by-side comfortably and safely. And then, to my horror, Emmett and Jasper...paired up, for lack of a better term, with Rosalie and Alice.

_Death to the world. Gruesome, killed-with-a-very-dull-butter-knife death._

Briefly, I considered letting myself fall back in line a little so that I wouldn't have to ride next to Edward. But, despite it all, I didn't want to be a rude jackass who refused to take a hint and ride in pairs as everyone else clearly was.

So, for my sanity, I ignored the sounds of Edward's bike navigating the ground right beside mine, the rustle of clothing and shift of dirt as he pedaled next to me. Instead I focused on how easy this was, how I'd foolishly deluded myself into thinking riding a bike was difficult, and best of all how the wind brushed against my face.

I could see the path start to dip in front of us, and happily braced myself for the downhill ride.

"Don't pedal downhill, you might lose control."

Forgetting what Alice had said before, I flicked my gaze to Edward. He was leaning back casually, his knees easily rising level with his hips one after the other, and only one hand on the handlebars.

Fucker.

"I think I'll be able to deal with one little hill." I tried to keep my sneering, in both face and voice, down to a minimum, but I wasn't at all sure how well I carried out that excellent plan.

He shrugged, moving his free hand from his bobbing-in-tandem-knees to scratch absent-mindedly at his chest. "Suit yourself. Just don't slow down too much on the uphill unless you change your speed, or you won't make it."

"Speed?" I cursed myself when the question automatically popped out.

His eyes glanced to me even though his head barely moved at all. "Yeah...That's an eight speed you're straddling right there."

_Shit, why are my thoughts suddenly in the gutter?_

Shaking my head and a bit unsure and confused, I stared down at the little knobby things on my handlebars. There were two of them. I had no idea which was which, or, furthermore, what the Frankenstein either of them did. And the hill was quickly approaching.

Moment of truth: did I ask Edward for his help, or tackle it by myself and hope I didn't go crashing into the woods to be eaten by an all-to-happy supercroc or giant anaconda?

I swallowed, really wishing I had more time to build up my courage-o-meter before saying what I was about to say. "What do they, um, do?"

Honestly, I thought for sure he'd laugh and/or scoff in my general direction. But did he?

Nope.

He switched hands, his left one now free, and drifted slightly closer to me. We weren't exactly going fast, just a leisurely pace, so I didn't feel all panicky that our bikes would collide and we'd go sprawling. Eyes darting back to the path intermittently, he extended a hand across the space between us, reaching over my own right hand to touch the knobby thing that had a tail.

"This is the only one that really matters for right now. See how it's on three at the moment?"

When he didn't continue, I realized he was waiting for an answer. Right, like I wouldn't be able to see it was on three. Idiot. "Yup."

"That's a middle pace, a good one. The lower the number, the lighter the resistance on the pedals." That sounded kind of awesome, honestly. "But the more you have to pedal to actually get anywhere." Figures. "The higher the number, the more resistance on the pedals, but the less you have to pedal to get where you want to go."

_Alright, and what does this have to do with going uphill?_

I could see we were only a couple yards from the downhill, which directly meant the uphill.

"When you want to change it, just reach your thumb up and move the tail to whatever number you want. That'll move the chain, and you'll feel it in the bike underneath you, but don't stop pedaling."

"But what does all this have to do with going uphill?"

His hand retreated, resting again on his thigh. His long thigh.

He shrugged in answer to my question. "Some people like to go lower speeds up hills, some people like a higher speed."

"Well, what's better?"

"It depends on the rider's preference."

Helpful. Really freaking helpful.

I didn't have a chance to voice my sarcasm though because we dropped down the hill. Maybe dropped wasn't exactly the correct term, because it wasn't as if the hill went straight down or anything. But with the way the forced breeze blew my hair out behind me, it kind of felt straight down to me.

I couldn't help the laugh that spilled from my mouth, exulted by the speed and the feeling of freedom that suddenly washed over me.

To my terror, out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Edward close his eyes as he smiled and fling his hands outward. _Both _his hands.

"Oh shit!"

His hands abruptly seized his handlebars again, his eyes snapping open. "What?" Embarrassed, I watched as his eyes scanned me up and down, and then over my bike.

"I'm sorry, I just..." Crap crap crap. How did I explain that Panicky Bella had a moment of panic just a second ago? "I saw you let go and I..."

Edward's eyes narrowed at my trailing off. Or at my apparent lack of confidence in his biking skills. It had to be one or the other, right?

"What?" he questioned in a mocking voice that didn't sound one-hundred-percent amiable and cheerfully friendly. "Thought I'd lose control, fall, crash into you?"

"Jeez, I'm sorry, alright? I saw you fling your arms out, completely _away_ from your handlebars, I might add, and I sort of panicked."

Unfortunately for me, the uphill was there out of the blue.

_For every high, there's always a directly corresponding low._

Whatever speed Edward had kept me on helped. Sort of. I preferred to thank the downhill for my somewhat-ease getting up the hill.

"By the way," Edward said when we were back on flatter ground, "it _is_ possible to ride with no hands. Just because _you _can't do something, doesn't make it in impossible."

Before I could think, I laughed scornfully. "You think I don't know that? I can't fly an airplane, doesn't mean airplanes can't be flown. I can't put my feet behind my head, doesn't mean I haven't seen that shit on _Whose Line Is It Anyway_. I can't perform bypass surgery, doesn't mean I don't have an uncle whose surgeon did it. I can't play the harp, doesn't mean I haven't sat there and watched someone do it."

Annoyed and...something else I wasn't about to take the time to identify, I shook my head at the end of my spiel, focusing back on the trail.

When Edward didn't say anything in reply, I occupied myself by wondering how long this nature trail would go and when the city slicker one would start. Don't get me wrong, I was fine with the whole Little-Black-Riding-Hood going through the woods thing, but I kind of wanted something firmer underneath me. Cement rather than dirt.

And it'd be awesome to feel a real breeze paired with the one my bike helped create.

I belatedly noticed that somehow we'd fallen behind Alice and Jasper, who were in between Edward and I, and Rosalie and Emmett. Feeling even more confident than I had before, I stepped up my pedaling pace, enjoying the simple act of riding a bike even more than I thought I would.

"Is there a particular reason why you're speeding up? A death wish perhaps?" Edward said calmly from beside me. Yeah, that's right, _said_. The words were arranged as a question, but the tone turned them into statements.

"We've fallen behind Alice and Jasper. I'd like to keep up, if it's all the same to you."

In response he sped up, moving partially in front of me versus right next to me.

So...I sped up too. I couldn't let him outdo me, after all.

We kept at it like that, a constant back and forth of one of us being in the lead, until we'd caught up to Alice and Jasper.

"...and she said, 'It's cheesecake.'"

Jasper laughed loudly at Alice's words, obviously having heard the rest of her tale that was quite clearly needed to understand whatever the hell she was talking about.

By some sort of mutual unspoken agreement, Edward and I ceased our childish racing antics so that we were simply riding side-by-side once again.

"I think the CS is coming up soon!" Emmett's voice called back over the wind in my ears.

Without really meaning to, I asked aloud, "CS?"

"City Slicker," Edward said instantly. "You know, the city slicker trail that takes us on sidewalks and such?" He slanted me a derisive glance out of the corner of his eyes.

I adopted a brainless and breathy, southern-ish dumb-chick accent, "Oh, really? Wow. I had _no _idea!"

Apparently Edward wasn't too keen on my perhaps-over-the-top sarcastic response. Or maybe he just had family who lived in the south and didn't appreciate my stereotyping. Either way, he still didn't say anything in reply to me. I couldn't decide which I found more of a jackass: Edward who wouldn't _stop _retorting, no matter how lost the cause was, or Edward who _refused_ to even acknowledge you'd had a riposte at all.

Maybe I'd make a pro-con list of both when I got back home.

Several minutes later, out of seemingly nowhere the path turned, curving away to the right.

But we didn't.

Nervously I followed the lead of the four people in front of me, trailing them as they broke away from the path and went left through an evident opening in the woods. We emerged on the other side on a light-gray sidewalk, narrower than what the previous path had been.

I worried slightly as Edward stayed beside me. The sidewalk didn't look quite big enough for two bikes. Thankfully, there was about two feet of grass on the left before you hit actual road, which eased my fears some. If Edward happened to swerve, I'd have enough room to ride without having to do it in the road.

Being roadkill was not exactly on my list of life goals.

"I think I like this better," Jasper said in front of us, obviously to Alice but close enough to me that I could hear what he said. "It's...smoother."

"Bite your tongue!" Alice stuck her tongue out after her words. "The trail affords _so _much more stuff to keep you occupied!"

"I don't agree with you there, Alice," I, perhaps a bit rudely, butted in to the conversation. "There's not as many bugs or leaves out here and the breeze is nice. Plus, look!" I nodded my head rather than risk removing a hand from the handlebars. "Buildings to keep you occupied!"

Shaking her head, Alice chuckled with a big grin. "Not much of an outdoorsy girl, are ya Bella?"

I purposely raised my eyebrows at her, though she couldn't see it. "And you are?" When I thought of Alice, _outdoorsy_ was definitely not what came to my mind.

"I am, actually," she answered what sounded like defensively. "A girl can like to look nice and still appreciate a good hike."

"Ew. Hiking."

Now Jasper laughed along with Alice. "What's wrong with hiking?" he asked.

"Bugs, humidity, falling, cliffs, snakes, dirt in places it shouldn't be, sweat, animal feces, bears, grunge, spiders—"

"Okay okay," Alice practically shouted even as she laughed. "It's not that bad though."

"Sure, sure," I responded, stealing my brother's probably favorite saying.

She said something to Emmett or Rosalie up in front of them that I didn't pay any attention to, mostly because Edward had started to partially drift toward me, scaring me sort of.

"Hey Jeff Gordon, wanna stay on your side there?" I told him, eyeing him out of the corner of my eyes. Which was about as much as I'd allow myself to take my eyes off the sidewalk in front of me.

"My side?"

"Yes, your side."

"There's designated sides?"

Annoyed a little, I heaved a sigh. "This is my side, that's your side." I gestured vaguely with only my head.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I can't see the line that defines sides because I forgot my glasses."

I knew he was just being condescending, but before I could control my mouth _or_ brain, they blurted, "You wear glasses?" I shook my head, keeping my eyes open of course, to rid it of the mental image and continued on without giving him a chance to answer. "And you don't need glasses to see the line because it isn't _really_ there. It's an invisible line. But it's there all the same."

I hoped to hell I sounded less ridiculous and insane to his ears than I did to my own.

Highly unlikely.

_Five...four...three...t_—

"That doesn't make any sense."

Damn! I'd been one countdown count off.

_Ooh, count. Now I want some Count Chocula..._

"Does the bouncing of the third wheeled eye make sense to the raspberry moon's lighthearted child?" I responded, just plain fucking with him now.

"_What_?"

Enjoying this perhaps a little too much, I addressed Alice, "Hey Alice, how long does this thing last? Does it like...circle back around to our starting point?"

"Well," and she proceeded to launch into a kinda-lengthy, confusing speech about where exactly we were going, and how we were going to get there.

Even though her words left me puzzled, I smiled happily at the fact that I'd pissed off Edward. I could practically _feel_ the pissy-ness rolling off him in choppy waves that crashed into me as though I was at the beach standing in the ocean.

I liked it probably more than I should have.

The waves of pissy-ness kept churning from Edward for the rest of the ride, even when we were finished with the sidewalk bit and back on the woodsy trail. Unfortunately, by the time we made it back to our starting point, I was annoyed at the pissy-ness rather than amused by it.

I distracted myself from that annoyance by studying Felix, Mr. Felix? Uncle Felix? Felix sir?, who was standing outside waiting for us when we rode up. He still wore the same cargo shorts and pink flip flops, but he'd changed his shirt into some sort of short-sleeved button down that had pineapples and flowers sprinkled all over it.

He pulled his hands out of his pockets as we all dismounted our bikes, rubbing them together in what seemed to me to be glee. _Wow, that's a lot of 'ee' sounds..._

"How was the ride, kids?"

"We're not kids," Edward grumbled, apparently still feeling the effects of my fucking around with him. I mean on him. Shit, no, fucking around _with his brain_.

Uncle Felix raised an eyebrow, looking so much like Alice in that act that I couldn't believe they weren't actually related. "Until you've been married, had a kid, been laid off, had to worry how you'd pay next month's bills, and bought a hair-growth product off late-night television, you're a kid."

"You've never been married though," Jasper took that moment to point out.

Uncle Felix laughed. "Good point, my boy."

Emmett changed the subject. "I like your shirt, man!"

"Oh don't even think about," Rosalie said immediately. "You are _not_ getting one of those."

"What? Who said I wanted one."

"I could see the look in your eyes."

He smirked. "Oh really?"

"And that is my cue to take these bikes inside," Uncle Felix said quickly, grabbing a bike with each hand and wheeling them back towards the main building.

Jasper took my bike away with him as he turned around, "Me too."

"You guys are wiiiimps," Emmett called after them, dragging out the word to taunt them.

"It's not like we were going to start dry humping right here in front of everyone," Rosalie muttered.

This time it was Alice who changed the subject. "It's still kind of early, so what are we going to do after this?"

Rosalie shrugged. "Beats me."

I was glancing around at everyone as though in a stadium watching a basketball game, but on one of my passes between Emmett, who didn't have any suggestions on what to do either, and Alice, I noticed Edward. More precisely, I noticed him staring straight at me. Jeez dude, way to be creepy motherfucker of the week. It wasn't exactly glaring, but neither was he smiling at me.

Whoa, weird thought, had I _ever_ seen him smile?

_Shut up, you saw him smile when he was going down the hill on his bike. Before you ruined his moment, that is._

_Oh, right right. He had a nice smile..._

I was torn out of my thoughts when someone said something, tearing Edward's eyes away from me and freeing me.

Wait, what? _Freeing_ me? What the hell?

_I've suddenly joined the cast of a cheesy fantasy book, that's all._

Uncle Felix and Jasper had returned, the former grabbing the last two bikes from Rosalie and Edward and disappearing again.

"How about you, Jasper," Alice asked, "what do you want to do now?"

He let his eyes linger on her for only a second before he looked around. Somehow we'd all unconsciously formed a standing circle.

"Ice cream?" he shrugged.

Eyes all around the circle widened before heads started nodding so eagerly I was slightly afraid one or all of us would break our necks.

"Ice cream!" Emmett and Rosalie called out at the same time like little kids again.

Alice asked, "Edward?"

He flashed a very brief, terse-looking smile. "Ice cream sounds great."

Apparently Mister Poopy Pants hadn't quite gotten over me messing with him yet. Hold a grudge much? Sheesh.

"You riding with me, Bella?" Alice called over her shoulder, and I realized everyone had started to walk away while I just stood there looking stupid.

"Oh yeah! Of course." No way in hell I was riding with Sir Ass-a-Lot.

"Where are we going for creamed ice?" Jasper asked once we were in Alice's car again. I was in the back this time, thanks to my slow-working brain and Jasper's long legs.

"You're such a dork," Alice laughed.

"Still didn't answer my question," he practically sang.

"Well, since Edward is in front of us, I guess we'll just follow him."

Fantastic, I almost muttered aloud but caught myself before I did. The last thing I wanted was to be a party pooper who ruined the fun.

"_I like big..._butts_ and I cannot lie, you other brothers can't deny_—"

Alice picked her phone up from the cup holder, answering it without skipping a beat in her driving. "What?"

"Wow, that's such a nice greeting for whoever's on the other line," I giggled.

"It's Edward," Jasper responded matter-of-factly.

I held back a snort. _Perfect ringtone, I'm sure._

_Hey, wait, did I just call myself big-butted?_

"How am I supposed to know these things?" Alice said into her phone. "Ha. Ha. Don't play that with me, bucko." She paused. "Look, I don't care _what's _gotten your panties in a twist, don't take that tone with me!" Another pause, where Edward obviously apologized for what he'd said to make Alice angry-slash-annoyed. "Forgiven. Now have you decided on a place?" Cue pause. "Pale and Bucket? Yeah, that's fine." Yet another pause. "Alright, see you there." She laughed quietly. "I know you do."

"Everything okay?" Jasper asked softly.

Alice turned to look at Jasper for a moment, smiling at him. "It is, yeah."

"And we're going to Pale and Bucket?"

Alice only nodded this time.

"Um," I started nervously from the back, "what's this pail and bucket?"

I was positive Jasper's as well as Alice's jaw dropped.

"You've never been to Pale and Bucket?" they asked in loud voices at the same time, which was honestly quite funny.

"No?" I sounded very confident in my answer. _Bravo, Bella._ Truthfully, I'd never even heard of the place. It didn't exactly sound like it sold ice cream though...

"Oh my virgin, we have _got_ to remedy this, Bella!" Alice exclaimed.

I chuckled, somehow managing to only sound a bit wary. "I take it you're gonna pop my cherry of this place?"

She laughed loudly. "Definitely!"

"Soo...is this place some sort of...beachy-themed gift shop or something that just happens to sell ice cream?"

"What?" Jasper asked, turning so he could look at me from his position in the front seat.

"Well, a store named after a pail and a bucket doesn't exactly sound like it sells ice cream to me…"

"No no no," Alice spoke before Jasper could. "It's _pale_, not _pail_!" she put an over-exaggerated emphasis on the two words that sounded exactly the same. "Pale as in not tanned. P-a-l-e," she spelled.

"Ohh, I see." And I did. Sort of. "It's a play on words because most ice cream, unless you get the really colored stuff that's just chocked full of dye, is pale."

It was quiet for a moment before Jasper said, "Dude, you totally just ruined it for me!"

"Huh?"

"I _love_ that funkily colored ice cream! Or, well, I used to," he sulked, crossing his arms.

"Think about this way," I mused, "if you've been eating it for this long, the dye probably isn't gonna kill you."

"At least not until you're fifty," Alice added, laughing.

"I'm sitting shotgun, and yet you guys still suck." Jasper angled himself away from us and toward the window. He stayed that way for the rest of the ride, making it awfully quiet until we pulled up into a relatively small parking space.

I took in stock of the building. It looked normal, average. The sign on the modest-sized building said Pale and Bucket, with the 'Bucket' part being written inside a very large rendering of the kind of container you'd generally get ice cream in from a place like this.

Once again, because it seemed to be the trend of this day, what I'd for some reason been expecting turned out different than what actually was.

"You guys are slooow," Rosalie teased when Alice, Jasper, and I got out. Judging by how casually they were reclining on Edward's car, they'd gotten here a bit before us.

Alice's comeback: "Nuh-uh, you guys are just fast."

"Speed limits, schmeed limits," I muttered to myself, making Jasper, who was standing right beside me, laugh.

"What?" Emmett questioned, eyes on Jasper.

Jasper explained, "Bella's funny."

"She is?"

I had to clench my fists to keep from saying something in retort to Edward. At least _I_ had enough manners to not be an arguing jackass in front of everyone. _I _knew to keep that stuff for when no one else was around.

"Hell yeah she is!" Jasper called out, reaching down to his left and ruffling my hair.

_Okay, that was a little weird..._

_And thank goodness Alice is shorter than I am so I'm not the shortest in this group. Second-shortest is bad enough, thank you very much._

Alice smirked. "I haveta agree with Jazz on this one."

Rosalie laughed at that, earning a glare from Alice I didn't understand.

"Well I came here for ice cream, not to flap my lips," Emmett said out of nowhere. I was kind of figuring that 'out of nowhere' was practically Emmett's conjoined twin. Or he just had a watered down, in the sense that he didn't spout cusswords, case of Tourette's.

Jasper gestured out in front of him, right hand going to Alice's back, "Shall we?"

"We shall indeed," Edward answered instead of Alice, which made me giggle like I was high or something.

Emmett held the door while we all trooped through. To the immediate right of the door were two doors with crude, made-with-a-sharpie drawings of a stick-figure girl and boy on each separate door. Bathrooms. In a little farther and to the left were a couple tables, situated right next to the window that led out to a small patio section with more tables and big umbrellas shading them. Across from the seating, past the bathrooms on the right, was a rather long, sloping-glass-covered-in-some-sections ordering counter.

"Do you know what you're getting yet?" Rosalie asked conversationally to Alice, or maybe Jasper. Both? I couldn't tell.

Before either, or both, of them could answer, a man in a slightly-dirty, white apron walked out from the back, wiping his hands on said apron. He was tall, tanned, with a short-sleeved burgundy shirt underneath his apron and black, moderately-short (but not crew cut) hair.

_Wait a tick..._

"Paul?" Sometime I'd stopped walking, choosing instead to stare straight at the familiar person.

His dark eyes shifted from the whole of the group, to me. A smile started to work its way across his face. "Bells?"

"Oh my gosh!" Before I knew it, I was in a bolt across the small space, going past the counter and into the area behind it. Paul caught me up in a hug as soon as I'd passed through the narrow channel in the counter.

His hug lifted me off my feet, spinning me around in small circles as I clutched my arms firmly around Paul's warm neck. All exactly as I remembered it.

"I haven't seen you in forever!" He squeezed me tight as he practically laughed his words.

I laughed back. "Same here!" Once he settled me back on my feet, I continued, "I didn't know you owned an ice cream shop!"

He looked down, a hint of a smirk playing on the edges of his mouth, before looking up again. Not shy, Paul had _never_ been shy (and I meant that in the someone-pulled-his-pants-down-as-a-prank-and-he-just-stood-there-letting-everyone-gaze-upon-his-lower-half-naked-self way), but flirtatious. "I don't exactly own it. I just run the damn place."

Paul was a blast from my past. He'd lived on the reservation with me and my family, had been one of Jake's close-but-not-super-duper-close friends, and I'd lost all touch and thought of him when he'd graduated high-school and moved away a year before I did.

Oh, and he was also always known as the bad-boy type, even though I suspected what lay in the center of his hard candy-shell (meaning sweet, sweet, sweeeeet) coating was a soft and gooey tootsie roll.

"You run it but don't own it?" I asked, only slightly teasing. "Kinda like the middle brother in a family business?"

He laughed the same laugh I'd always remembered: deep, throaty, and lip-biting, eye-squinting hot. "Yeah, kinda like that."

A sneeze from behind me reminded me that I hadn't come in here alone, and I quickly turned around.

Emmett sneezed again, his whole head flopping forward as he did.

"Eww, Em!" Rosalie pushed on his shoulder, grossness written all over her face. "Sneeze into your elbow, you loser!"

"Did she just call her boyfriend a loser?" Paul asked, now behind me.

I looked at him over my shoulder as I made my way back to the customer side of the counter. "How do you know he's her boyfriend?"

He shrugged, far from innocent. "They've been in here before." He didn't say anything else, as if that explained just how he knew Emmett was Rose's beau.

Once I'd rejoined my group, Alice grabbed my arm. "Who is _he_?" she whispered what I hoped wasn't loud enough for Paul to hear. The last thing I really needed at the moment was him to overhear me and my friend talking about how fine a piece of ass he was. "He is _delicious_!"

"I _know_, right?" I made a little choking sound as I attempted to keep my giggle from bursting forth like an alien baby out of a human's body.

"He's not _that_, good-looking," Jasper grumbled, still on Alice's left.

"No, he's not," Edward added in almost the same tone.

I told Alice, "He's an old friend. From mostly my high school days."

"Did you date him?" she questioned hurriedly, her eyebrows waggling up and down and her mouth firmly grinning.

"He wishes!"

We both dissolved into (hopefully quiet) girlish giggles.

"Are you guys ever going to order?" Jasper interrupted with more than a little note of petulance in his voice.

I stifled another round of giggles, even as Alice said, "Yes, we are. Bella needs a tour first though."

"A tour?"

"Yes, a tour," she confirmed to my question in a comically prim voice. "These things have to be done properly, you know."

I smiled at her adorable ridiculousness. "Shouldn't the proprietor," Paul coughed loudly from his place behind the glass counter, forearms rested casually on the top of it, _damn he's taller than I remember_, "or manager give the tour?"

Alice barked a laugh, making Paul, much to my amusement, sober up like a dog being scolded. "Nonsense! I probably know this place better than him!"

"Hey!" he inputted, not rudely. "I'll have you know we added four new flavors since the last time you all came in!"

Alice blinked at him, seeming astonished. "You remember us when we come in?"

Paul grinned now. Widely. His forearms stopped tensing on the top of the glass case. "Course I do."

"You're a man of little information," Alice observed with eye-narrowed suspicion.

"Would you prefer that I tell you each and every exact reason as to why I remember you and your group there?" he teased, really flirting it up now. _Yup, just as I remembered. _"Sans Bella, of course," he added.

She seemed to think over her answer a moment, and I saw Jasper squirm in his place on the opposite side of her to me. "Perhaps not. I am rather hungry, after all."

"Excellent," Emmett hissed happily. "Let's get on with it!"

"Wait!" Alice said, voice a level below shouting.

Edward asked, "What?"

"The tooour," she whined, pushing her bottom lip out for extra emphasis.

Jasper laughed. "Alright alright, give Bella your tour." He gently nudged Alice forward with his hand on the small of her back.

"Yay!" she called excitedly like a little kid. Her face said it all though. It was a face that plainly read: _Ha!_

As Edward inquired to Paul about whether or not their credit card machine had been fixed, Alice grabbed my hand in a surprising gesture. "Alright, Bella," she began, leading me toward the edge of the glass section nearest to the passage to the back area. "Here you have your classics. You've got your Cotton Candy," she pointed toward the glass and a large white bucket filled with a purple and pink concoction and labeled neatly with the ice cream's title, "your Boston Cream Pie, your Pistachio Almond," she pointed them all out as she said their names, "your Brownie Fudge, your Berry Berlicious, your Pumpkin Cheesecake, your Dutch Chocolate, and your Oatmeal Cookie Chunk."

I had to wonder, if those were the classics, what would constitute the new and inventive ones? Because _my_ ice cream classics where things like chocolate, vanilla, butter pecan, Neapolitan.

I glanced mournfully at the surprisingly long counter looming down the left of me and Alice, suddenly wondering if the many many choices garnered them more customers because of their variety, or less because it took so very long to decide what you wanted.

"And now you get into your more complicated beauties," Alice continued. "You've got World Class, which is white chocolate and milk chocolate ice cream. Watermelon Chip, which is watermelon flavored ice cream with chocolate 'seeds'," she did air-quotes, "in it. Miami Ice, which is lime and pink grapefruit swirled. A little tart, if you're not into that stuff, you might want to stay away. Right above that is the SLB, or Seven Layer Bar, a personal favorite of mine. It's got coconut flavored ice cream, and I'm a total sucker for anything coconut," she added in a conspiratorial voice, "coconut and fudge flakes all throughout it, walnuts, and then swirls of graham cracker and butterscotch. Sounds like a lot, but it melds together rather beautifully."

She continued on like that, and after one or two more descriptions, I started to really get into it, wondering what would taste the best, what I'd prefer to have, if I had any already-formed preferences as concerned ice cream.

"And next you have Jasper's favorite," she threw a look over her shoulder at the man in question. "Psychedelic City. Which is a ridiculous swirl of green apple sherbet, blue raspberry sherbet, fruit punch sherbet, and blueberry sherbet. You really kind of have to acquire a taste for that much sherbet, in my own opinion."

"Yes," Jasper responded from behind Alice, the teasing in his voice matching what had been in hers, "it takes quite a master to be able to down, and enjoy, a large Psychedelic City."

I didn't doubt it. I'd never pick that one. Sherbet wasn't even my favorite normally, let alone when it was four different sherbets all combined into one ice cream.

"And this is..." she trailed off, staring at the buckets behind the glass. "Wait, what _is_ this?"

"Ready for my help yet?" Paul remarked smugly, yet with that same flirty tone from a few minutes ago, leaning on the top of the ice cream's home to see Alice fully.

She muttered under her breath, "Maybe."

"Well," Paul started, "what you have here first, is Batter Up. Yellow cake batter ice cream with pieces of yellow cake scattered throughout. A _little_," he tilted his head to the side with the word, "on the different side if you're not in the mood for that. And, well, definitely not good for the person that never liked eating raw dessert batter or dough in the first place."

He flashed his teeth in a smile before moving on to the next flavor. "This little baby is Coffee Coffee BuzzBuzzBuzz, for the coffee enthusiast. Coffee flavored ice cream, with espresso bean fudge chunks."

"Ooh, that sounds good." Alice nodded as she stared at the bucket under discussion.

"It is, trust me," Paul chuckled. I wondered how often he sampled ice cream. "Next is Jamaican Me Crazy."

"Say huh?" I interrupted before he could say anything else.

"It's actually quite good too, if you're in the mood for fruity and/or tropical. Toasted nuts, bits of pineapple and coconut," Alice perked up instantly when he said the word, "and rum-flavored ice cream."

Gesturing, I asked, "And the last?"

"Mm," Paul hummed, his eyes darting somewhere I didn't see because it was too fast. "An oldie come back from the grave of retirement. _That_ is Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Chocolate Swirl. Uncreative name, but hey, no one would listen to me." His grin was interrupted by a shriek.

Rosalie came rushing up the glass, almost shoving me face-forward into it with her haste. "_It's back?_" she squealed.

"Rose has an addiction—"

"Obsession," Emmett corrected Alice's explanation.

"—with peanut butter cups." Alice smiled with several notes of fondness as Rosalie gazed at the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Chocolate Swirl ice cream.

"I take it you're getting that?" Jasper wondered with a small laugh.

Rosalie replied, "Hells to the yeah!" She glanced over her shoulder at Emmett. "And I'm getting a large."

The words seemed to mean something to Emmett, who groaned what sounded to my ears like approvingly.

_Weird._

_And possibly very _ew_._

"Let's order then!" Jasper enthused.

Rosalie went up first, letting Paul ring up her order. He did it easily, not having a problem with that whole 'serving someone you know-slash-kinda know' thing I knew a lot of people who struggled with. Emmett was up next, getting something called the Lunar Cheesecake that I didn't think had sounded very good when Alice had described it. I wasn't a huge fan of marshmallow in ice creams, after all.

When I noticed Paul didn't ring up an entire new order for Emmett, I turned slightly to Alice, asking her what was going to be the deal with paying.

"Oh," she waved a nonchalant hand. "Edward already explained that it was his treat."

_Great_, I muttered in my head. _That means I'll have to be all nice and polite and thank him for my ice cream, or be a rude bitch and decline the nicety by paying for my own._

Somehow, I knew option two would not turn out well. Instead, I settled for having to go through with option one.

"I'll have a medium Psychedelic City," Jasper told Paul.

Edward chimed in next, "Miami Ice." When Paul raised his eyebrows, Edward added, "Oh yeah, a medium."

Paul's eyes flicked to Alice, his features instantly morphing into his flirty face, as I liked to call it. "Hmm," she mused, as though she were trying to decide what she wanted despite the fact that her gaze was firmly fixed on Paul and not on the rows of ice cream. "Jamaican Me Crazy, I think."

"Size?" Paul asked as he punched in some keys on the cash register.

"Well, I'm not really in the mood for a big one, so...let's go with a medium."

I had my mouth behind my hand in hopes that it would muffle my giggle at Alice's words.

"Bella?" Paul wondered aloud, pulling me from the gutter.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Um..." I actually _did_ look back down the lines of ice creams, pondering what I wanted to get. Boston Cream Pie sounded good, but then so did Pumpkin Cheesecake. I'd always nibbled on cake batter and cookie dough, so I thought about getting Batter Up. Then again, I also loved coffee.

"Watermelon Chip," I decided in the end. Because, well, watermelon ice cream was just too curious to pass up tasting.

Paul stared at me, looking for all the world as if he were waiting for something. What, I couldn't imag––

_Oh._

"Er, a medium?" Since it was what I'd been hearing the most, it popped out before I could stop myself. The part of me that wasn't quite used to and comfortable with people buying me things wanted to say small, the least expensive so as to be less of a burden to the person giving the treat of free-to-me ice cream. But my mouth and stomach were firm about wanting more than a small.

"You sure about that?" Paul teased, grinning at me as he waggled his eyebrows once.

I scrunched my nose and stuck my tongue out at him in response. "Bite me."

"Ew, gross. No thanks."

Oddly enough, I was slightly offended by his refusal. I'd been expecting a 'gladly' or 'when?' or 'is that an invitation?', not an 'ew gross'. "Hey!" I said, hoping I didn't sound as indignant as my thoughts were. Paul shrugged an 'ah well' gesture instead of actually saying anything.

I heard a scoff behind me and turned on the spot to glare at Edward. Bastard had probably heard every little ounce of indignation in my voice and was now enjoying quite the amusement at my expense.

Our eyes locked for three speeding, tightening heartbeats before he glanced away and strode up to Paul, handing him what I had to assume was payment.

It was so contradictory. One minute he was scoffing and laughing at me, the next he was paying for all of our ice creams. And in a place like this, I couldn't imagine that they were cheap.

_He's going to give me a migraine._

Paul waved us all off with a "Sit sit!" before grabbing a bunch of containers from somewhere below the counter, sliding the glass away from one section of the ice cream, and diving in.

"Outside or in?" Rosalie asked, nodding toward the patio and then toward the tables a few feet in front of us.

Glances traveled around, heads nodding as, in unison, we said, "In."

Edward and Jasper joined two of the small tables so we could all sit together, grabbing the chairs from where they'd moved them out of the way and dragging them back. Jasper held out a chair for Alice, and I noticed unhappily that Edward was doing the same for me.

"Thanks," I uttered grudgingly as I sat down in the proffered chair next to Alice.

Edward didn't say anything in reply.

Emmett sat across from me before Rosalie sat down, and she smacked him on the back of the head. "Ow, Rose!"

"You'd make an awful medieval knight," she grumbled, pulling out her own chair.

"Would not," he argued. "Look at how big I am!" He flexed his biceps. "I'd be a champion."

"Yeah, a champion in the fight who'd stay unmarried forever because he was no gentleman."

"Bet the castle whores would love 'im though," I chimed in without thinking about it.

My eyes widened and I once again slapped a hand over my mouth, horrified at what I'd just said.

It was quiet for a moment before the entire table, or rather, tables, broke out in laughter. I danced my gaze around cautiously with more than a small bit of wonder.

"Oh my gosh," Emmett wheezed between laughs, "you're a genius, Alice! This girl is _priceless_!"

She beamed over at me, her shoulders still shaking with the occasional chuckle.

"Order's up!" Paul called from behind the counter, interrupting the waning hilarity.

I smiled at him as we approached the piled-high containers of ice creams lined up on the top of the freezer thing, amused by how he treated his job.

He continued, "In order of, well, order." He gestured down the line of ice cream cups.

Rosalie snatched hers up quickly, blowing a kiss at Paul. "Thanks, doll!"

Emmett grunted and grabbed his, snaking an arm possessively across Rosalie's shoulder before they walked back toward our seats. Her smile was wide, wicked, and pleased.

"You're going to eat _that_?" I stared at Jasper's cup, quite openly gaping at the heap of color that did not look appetizing to me at all.

In answer, Jasper grabbed a spoon from the box on the counter and shoved a big bite in his mouth. "Mm-mm good," he mumbled around the frozen treat in reproduction of a Campbell's commercial.

Edward's looked tasty at least, the green and light-pink swirls mild and pleasing to the eye. I wondered idly if he'd let me try a bite.

Alice's was yellow-ish in main color, and bits of different colored whatcha-ma-call-its floated throughout it. Looked a little strange, but not exactly gross.

Mine was far from light-pink, the red of the watermelon it got its name from over-exaggerated in only the way you could ever find in imitation-watermelon. I didn't even wait till we meandered back over to the tables before I tasted it.

_Holy hell._

I moaned around the spoon as I took my seat, hoping it was quiet but knowing by the amused grins and raised eyebrows of the people surrounding me that it had been anything but.

"This is delicious!" I all but squealed by way of explanation.

Five spoons descended immediately on my cup sitting in front of me on the table, arms crisscrossing over and under others.

"Hey hey hey!" I tried to swat them away, but they were too fast, and before I knew it almost all of my top scoop was gone.

_Well at least they had the decency to take small spoonfuls..._

Heads all around the two tables moved, some in a yes, some in a no.

"That is good," Jasper started the reviews.

Alice said, "Eh, too watermelon-y for me."

"Needs more chocolate," Rosalie observed.

"Chocoholic," Emmett muttered without fire, shrugging as his only assessment of the ice cream.

"I wouldn't want to get it every time," Edward began, "but it's not gross or anything."

I didn't know how I felt about that fact that all five of the people surrounding me had each stuck their spoons, which I knew had already been in their mouths, in my ice cream. Staring down at the bright red frozen treat with chocolate oblong shapes littered throughout, testing out my feelings, I decided I honestly didn't care.

I shrugged once, digging my spoon back in for another bite.

"Ooh, remember that one time when they did that experiment with fudge, pineapple, and blueberries that _soo_ turned out wrong and gross?" Alice laughed at the memory.

Hums of acknowledgment and sorrowful head nods echoed around our little rectangle.

"Hey, I actually kind of liked that one!"

Everyone else, excluding myself, shrunk back from Jasper, eyes roaming up and down as they made disgusted faces at him as though he were a hobo from the fifteenth century wandering around the Whitehouse.

"Off with his head!" Emmett shouted, motioning the act on himself with his spoon.

"I don't even _know _you!" Rosalie joined in, pointing an accusing finger at Jasper.

He only laughed, shaking his head as the excitement of his outburst died down.

Quiet munches and the cars on the highway outside were the only sound for a bit, before my curiosity of everyone else's ice cream got the better of me. "Since mine was pilfered, it seems only fair that I get to try all of yours," I gestured around the tables.

Five pairs of eyes stared straight back at me after my words. I realized dimly that I'd have to get used to that. Five people in this group of friends that, somehow, managed to stick together. I still hadn't figured that bit out yet.

"She's got balls," Rosalie finally said, eyes never leaving me. "I like it."

"Me too," Emmett agreed, staring at me as well.

My grin grew impossibly huge as five buckets of ice cream were pushed toward me from various places around the table.

I went counterclockwise, starting with Alice. Hers was okay, left a nice lounging-on-the-beach taste in your mouth. I nearly gagged on Jasper's, chewing and swallowing as I shook my head no. As in _no freaking way_. He chuckled and, shaking some hair out of his attractively oceanic eyes, retracted his container to tuck his own spoon in to it.

"Jeez," I coughed a little, "how do you _eat _that, Rosalie? It's so _sweet_!" Absently, I noticed that was the first time I'd ever addressed her by her name.

She grinned broadly at me. "Takes quite a sweet tooth."

"Ew," I said as I tasted Emmett's, "marshmallows should _not_ be in ice cream."

He gasped dramatically. "Bite your tongue!"

Giggling a bit at him, I moved on to the last one, Edward's. I pursed my lips as the flavors hit my tongue. "It's kind of tart."

He nodded, eyebrows raised at me and what I thought was a small smirk playing across his lips.

"Told ya so," Alice sang from my right, savoring another bite of her beachy, minus the sand of course, ice cream.

"Oh," Jasper groaned from the end of the table opposite Edward, pressing a fist to his forehead. "Brain freeze."

I fought the urge to giggle again. _As if we couldn't tell it was a brain freeze._

"Stick your tongue on the roof of your mouth," Alice instructed.

"Pssh," Emmett scoffed. "That doesn't work. Make out with someone!" he instructed instead.

Jasper eyes popped wide in his grimacing face, his mouth opening a little in shock.

Rosalie joined me in my quietly escaping giggles. "Look at his face," she said, snickering.

After a moment that face returned to normal, his fist lowering from his forehead.

"That'll teach you to eat your ice cream too fast," Edward said mothering-ly.

"You sound like a mother," I blurted, sniggering some more.

"I do not," he muttered, tacking a rather large bite of his ice cream.

Mockingly, I said, "Better be careful, or you'll get a brain freeze."

The chatter was aimless and mostly harmless after that, though still funny. I'd planned to give Paul a hug and my address and tell him to drop by some time before we left, but he was busy with some customers. I settled for waving instead, making myself a mental note to come back some other day.

"Well," Alice began with a pleasant smile and curious eyes when we were outside hanging around the building, "what did you think of the popping of your Pale and Bucket cherry?"

I nodded approvingly. "It was good. Really good!"

"Excellent," Jasper declared, with a grin matching Alice's. "We've got ourselves another convert."

Laughing, I said, "Thanks for bringing me." I turned slightly to my left, where Edward stood leaning against the side of the building with his arms casually crossed. "And for the ice cream, Edward." I smiled at him, hoping he could see the genuine feeling of thanks that lived behind it.

He inclined his head toward me. "No problem."

I detected an implied 'anytime' in his words, but couldn't decipher if it was real or just my imagination.

"Tomorrow's your day off, right?" Alice asked as she pulled up in front of my apartment, which she'd easily found with little direction on my part. I'd gotten to the car first that time, leaving Jasper to climb in the backseat as I'd cackled in faux-evilness.

"Yeah."

"Alright, well then I'll see you Tuesday." She smiled.

I couldn't help but smile back, even as I wondered if a hug or something would be too forward of me. "Sounds good." _Screw it_, I decided, leaning over and quickly pecking a kiss to Alice's cheek. "Thanks for asking me along today, Alice! I had a great time."

Her smile grew bigger. "Anytime, Bella, anytime. And I mean that!" _Definitely no implied there; it's full-on direct._ She waved as I got out and started up the stairs in front of my house.

I could feel my legs channeling their inner fortune teller by informing me that they would be none-too-happy in the morning thanks to the two-hour bike ride.

Trudging through my door, I headed straight for the kitchen and sustenance since I didn't expect Jake home for another hour or so. Imagine my surprise when I found him home early, his whole body practically stuffed in the fridge.

"Jake?" Yes, I had to ask. Because I wasn't sure those ratty jeans with the remnants of his only attempt at cigarettes in the form of a hole right near the butt region, actually belonged to him.

Scaring (and amusing) the crap out of me, he shrieked and bumped his...well, _something_ loudly on a shelf of the fridge. He quickly backed out from said fridge, rubbing the back of his head.

"Bells?"

_No shit, Sherlock._ But I only lifted my eyebrows in response.

"How was the biking?"

I chose not to answer that question. "Aren't you home a little early?"

He shrugged. "Got kinda boring, so I left. We have no food in this house, by the way."

I snorted. "Of course we do. We have tons of food."

"Oh yeah, there's some Yoplait yogurt-y girly shit in there, like fifty-bazillion cucumbers and bananas, but is there any leftover lasagna? Nooo."

"Since when is yogurt girly? And my _gosh_ you're awfully picky."

"Picky?" He scoffed like a fourteen-year-old boy again. "Shit, I am not picky. I'm just feeling a little like the female race is taking over the fucking world."

"Potty mouth," I mumbled half-heartedly. He rolled his eyes but chuckled like I knew he would. "And why do you think the female race is taking over the world?"

"So how was the biking?" he deflected.

"I don't wanna talk about it." It'd been a long and odd day, and I wasn't precisely sure exactly how I felt about all of it. And until I _was _sure, I didn't want to go into detailed discussion about it.

"Well I don't want to lament about females to my _female _sister. Which is part of the problem anyway."

I raised my eyebrows again briefly, leaning back carelessly against the counter. "You're having a problem with the fact that I, your _sister_, am a female?"

"Duh, isn't that what I just said?"

"Yes, it is. But I repeated it so you could hopefully see the ridiculous stupidity of your statement."

"I know you are, but what am I?" he mocked in his attitudinal, whiny voice.

I laughed before motioning toward the cabinet directly behind him. "There's cereal."

"But I had that for breeeakfast, Bells!" he whined some more.

"Is that my problem? Maybe you should have had toast for breakfast, that way you could have cereal for dinner."

He appraised me for a moment before matter-of-factly saying, "You suck."

I pretended to be disinterested, but I was smiling, and not only because that was not the first time today I'd heard a grown man tell me I sucked.

Apparently unsatisfied with my food help, Jake grumped his way out of the kitchen and into the living room. I heard the beep of the TV coming on before Chuck Woolery's announcer voice explaining the rules of Lingo broke the previous relative silence.

Sighing quietly yet contentedly, I made my way to the freezer. Despite the fact that I'd just had ice cream not half-an-hour ago, I pulled out a Fudgsicle, dropping into a kitchen chair before slowly unwrapping it.

_Ah, sweet relief._

_

* * *

_

**Reviews are shiny disco balls in my day, you lovely readers, so leave one purdy please! :)**


	6. Plausibly Possible Probables

**A/N: Because this chapter wouldn't be here without several people, this be a long note, sorry. First off, I'm sorrier than I can say for the update fail. I've been dabbling with three contest entries - one of which is now posted, coughthat'smeself-pimpingcough - plus, I suck. (Which is what it says about me on the boys' bathroom wall. Ha, jk.)**

**To my darling iponeddyou, you're the Shopcob to my Shopella. :) (Except for, ya know, the whole male thing.) Go read her lovely story Some Kind of Wonderful (link on my profile), mmkay? Mmkay!**

**I still have trouble believing it, but Lemon Muffins rec'd this lil story of mine on The Little-Known Ficster. If you want to check out the site, the rec, or all her awesome stories, link to all is on my profile as well. Btw, Jake says he owes you a... favor, Grace. ;)**

**Infinite pic-spams and perveh fruits/veggies to the wonderful Hyacinthgirl18, who beta-ed this for me when the world was tryna stop it from getting beta-ed. She's completely awshum, as is her writing. Go read her stuff, most especially **_**Peaches**_**. You can find her in my fav authors and stories.**

**Disclaimer: Me's no nots un Twiyite, er da moofee Da Shup Arrand Da Kerner. Beet airthan eels beyongs ta meh, incloodin wahn durlin Twinkeh.**

******* **Bella's POV**

It seemed my body had finally begun to accept working in the mornings rather than afternoons. Something for which I was grateful. I'd actually woken up on time today, finished my shower in a timely manner, didn't have any clothes to locate, remembered to put on everything I needed. It was a good day; a little presumptuous to say before noon, but whatever. I was on track to be leisurely on time for work.

Until my toast burned.

I _hated_ burnt toast.

Might as well eat sheep eyeballs, I hated it so much.

Now, the smart thing would have been to just throw the burnt toast away and grab a breakfast bar so I could remain _leisurely on time_. But I'd been eating breakfast bars in a rush for nearly the past two weeks, and I'd gotten rightfully sick of them.

Plus, I was having one of those I'm-more-than-definitely-not-pregnant-or-PMS-ing-but-that-doesn't-mean-I-can't-have-cravings moments.

I _wanted_ some toast, dammit!

Grabbing two more slices of honey wheat, I stuffed them in the toaster, being sure to set it far lower than I had before. Since watching toast cook was the equivalent of watching paint dry, I snatched up my glass of OJ and stared out the kitchen window. We didn't precisely live on Main Street, but there were enough goings-on to keep me entertained.

I smiled, observing the world move. Observing the lady directly across from my apartment vigorously sweeping the sidewalk in front of her place. Observing the little boy playing with chalk while his father read the newspaper on the steps. Observing the neighborhood's voyeur cat sitting on a windowsill watching a couple making out in their living room.

_Jeez, learn the concept of curtains, people._

I forced myself to turn away from the window lest I become the human form of VC, as I affectionately referred to the orange-Creamsicle cat as.

_Sniff. Sniff, sniff._

Aw, shit!

I rushed back to my toaster, which was emitting little tiny plumes of smoke. My bread popped up as I hit the button, not a complete black charcoal, but still way too burnt for my tastes.

Glancing to the clock, I noted in dismay that I didn't quite have enough time to chance it.

"Dammit!" I cursed aloud this time, my foot just itching to kick the stupid toaster. I'd _set_ it on a low setting, for pete's sake! "Why, why me? Why do _I_ have to be in possession of the demon toaster?"

I let out a groan, or roar, of frustration, suddenly glad Jake took extraordinarily long showers. A smug brother laughing at me as he proclaimed that toast always came out perfectly for him would so _not_ help me at the moment.

I could now either resort to yet _another_ breakfast bar, or try my hand at finding something else in the cabinets to eat.

Calculating for a moment, I instead headed, with angry strides, to the fridge.

_Mustard, eggs, cucumber, Swiss cheese, opened can of Beefaroni, 'nother cucumber._

Maybe Jake was right about all the cucumbers... But where were all the yogurts and bananas?

_Chicken base, half-eaten roll of store-bought cookie dough, mysterious leftover that is possibly a month old, package of hamburger, open container of chocolate frosting, what looked to be_—

_SCORE!_

I hastily grabbed the clear, square container of my find, stuffing the whole thing into the microwave once I'd removed the top.

Arms crossed, I tapped my foot impatiently as the seconds ticked down. Time never moved slower than when you were watching it on a microwave. When it got to five seconds left, I couldn't take it anymore and pulled the door open quickly, seizing my prize from within the magical contraption that was a microwave.

And almost dropping it on the floor because, damn! It was _hot_!

Luckily for my stomach, I had marginally good aim and the container landed on the counter rather than the floor. Grabbing the corner of it cautiously with only two fingers, I headed out of the kitchen.

"Spoon!" I did an about-face, snatching a spoon from the silverware drawer.

I'd barely bumped the drawer closed with a hip when Jake's voice, echoing from where I presumed he was prettying himself up for the day in his bedroom or bathroom, reached my ears.

"IS THAT CHILI I SMELL?"

Instinctually (and in paranoid guilt), I froze.

"NO!" I called back, turning around the kitchen in a vain attempt to find some way to hide my breakfast.

His bare feet slapped against the hardwood as he came closer and closer to where I now sat on the counter, ultra-weak spine braced up against a cabinet in hopes that I'd have the strength not to share.

"_Liar!_" he accused, standing in the entryway of the kitchen and pointing a finger at me.

"Umfa-nupta," I mumbled around a hasty swig of coffee, fighting to keep my eyes from darting around guiltily.

Narrowed eyes staring straight at me, Jake bent slightly to deposit his shoes on the floor so he could then put them on his pontoon-sized feet. Obviously, he was trying to get off the message 'I'm watching you.'

Mouth clear now, I wondered aloud, "How are you allowed to wear flip-flops to work? I thought you worked at a mechanic's garage, not the Tiki Torch on the beach."

"I keep my boots there, if you must know." I rolled my eyes at his clipped and snotty tone. "Are we going to leave?"

"Yeah." I hopped down from the counter and, cradling the chili in my arms and hunching over it, made my way past my brother to the front door. Still guarding my breakfast like it was a prized jewel, which it totally was, I slung my bag over my shoulder and carefully maneuvered the door open.

I met our mailman at the bottom of the stairs, trying in vain to keep every part of me from lighting up, literally or figuratively, at the prospect of a new letter.

"Hey, Marv!" I greeted the sour-looking man as I fought back a laugh. It was a struggle every time I saw him. The combination of perpetual grouchiness, likeness in looks to Wallace Shawn, outfit resembling Cliff's on _Cheers_, and the whole Marvin the Mailman thing amused me every. Damn. _Time_.

Jake considered it a testament to my childishness in some areas; I stuck my tongue out at him whenever he voiced that particular thought.

Mister Marvin the Mailman (_I will not snicker, I will not snicker_) grunted as his only response to my salutation.

"Is there a new letter for me?"

"If there is, you'll get it when it's delivered."

I rolled my eyes, hopefully without him seeing. "Come on, I'm out the door right now! If you have something for me, can't you just give it to me now?" Alright, I was whining. So what.

He studied me with narrowed eyes and pursed lips in an already-pursed face. Finally, with another grunt, this one sounding grudging, he dug around in his shoulder bag. He emerged from the worn bag with a plain white envelope and handed it to me.

I told myself bouncing forward and hugging him would only scare the dude and get me my electric bill conveniently misplaced.

Bouncing forward and kissing his cheek would also probably be a bad idea.

Any kind of bouncing as concerned Marv and thanking him was more than likely unwise.

So, I settled for a wide grin aimed at him and the letter in his oddly tiny hands.

The address on the front of the envelope was my P.O. box, but our post office was completely off its rocker and offered the service of P.O. box deliveries to your house. Honestly, it didn't make any sense to me. But who the hell was I to complain when it saved me a trip to the post office?

He handed me the letter with only a bit of reluctance, but I, being as excited as I was, snatched it from him with the wrong hand and almost dropped it right into my container of chili.

With eyes that I could feel were wide and probably terrified, I mumbled mostly to myself, "Yeah, we'll wait till _after_ the food's gone."

Grunting again, Marv continued on past me.

I stared at the letter for a moment, debating how much damage I might do to it if I decided to eat, drive, and attempt to read it at the same time. Sighing, I carefully slipped it into my overstuffed bag.

Getting up into my truck, while protecting my food as though I hadn't eaten in weeks, was not the world's easiest task. I almost dropped it twice before my butt hit the seat. Once I'd closed the door behind me, I stuck the container of chili between my left thigh and said door. I wasn't exactly what one would describe as ambidextrous, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

"Why am I still chauffeuring you around?" I mused out loud to distract Jake from the smell of my breakfast, which was now wafting out all over everywhere in the truck cab.

I glanced away from the road in time to see him hunch a little in his seat, mumble-complaining something along the lines of, "Granny-ass shipping."

_Hmm, curious. There's no reason sloth shipping should cause that color on his face..._

I'd have to bug the crap out of him for answers later. There wasn't enough time at the moment to execute the procedures I'd need to.

Right hand balanced on the steering wheel, I grabbed the spoon with my other hand, lifting it from the container once it held a nice mouthful of chili.

_Is there anything better than chili for breakfast? I think not!_

_Well, except maybe waffles. Waffles are good. Ooh, and bacon, can't forget bacon._

"Why are you eating that?" Jake asked when we'd come to a stoplight.

"Because it's food and it's good and I'm hungry. Dur-her."

"Well how did you find it?"

Wrinkling my nose at the interrogation, I swallowed another spoon of my breakfast before responding. "I looked in the fridge, Officer."

"But I'd stuffed it in the back of the fridge so I could have it laaaater!" he whined dramatically. "And what the hell are you doing digging around in the back of the fridge?"

I gasped around my current mouthful of chili as I tried to glare at him without taking my eyes off the bit of traffic in front of us. "You're hiding food in our refrigerator?"

He sniffed snootily and didn't answer, which was answer enough.

"When I stop this car, I am pinching you into oblivion, you little food-hiding weasel!"

Two minutes later, when I actually _did _stop my truck since we'd made it to the garage where Jake worked, he was out the door before I could even shift my hand from the steering wheel.

Moving my chili to the middle of the cab seats, I quickly opened my door and pulled myself up until I was staring out over the rusty top of my truck. "You'll get yours soon, buster!" I called to Jake's back.

Astounded, I could only watch as my normally-so-sure-of-himself brother tripped over absolutely nothing the moment a pretty (at least from my current distance), tanned and dark-haired girl with a scowl on her face walked out of the adjoined office.

_My oh my, what have we here? Popeye yearning after Olive Oyl?_

I snickered to myself at my brother's obvious entrancement with the girl, making a mental note to tease him about it later on and get the details.

Once Jake had disappeared into the large metal building, I plopped back into my seat and grabbed my chili again. It'd cooled quite a bit now, but what the hell. I shoved spoonfuls of it into my mouth as I waited for traffic to be clear enough that I could pull out from the fenced-in parking lot of the garage.

I downed the last mouthful of it as I put my truck in park across from the Shop. Calculating the extent of traffic on the road separating me from work, I decided it wasn't entirely a sufficient amount of time to properly fawn over Greenheart's letter. It would simply have to wait a little, that was all.

Just wait a little while longer. Not such a big deal.

Nevertheless, I hurried across the road and into the on-the-nippy-side building. Unfortunately for me, the first person I saw was Edward, and my curiosity and confusion combined to breed the accident that was me asking, "Are we entertaining some visiting Eskimos today or what?"

On anyone else, I was sure, my witty reference to the temperature would have cracked a smile, _at least_. But on Edward? All I got was an eye roll of the forcible-looking kind (_Ya know, where you're worried it's going to strain the eye muscles and the person's eyes will be stuck in the rolled position until the muscles heal?_) and the seemingly customary-no-matter-how-much-ground-I'd-thought-we'd-covered mutter.

"I hope that wasn't chili you just had for _breakfast_," he sneered the word, as if there were only certain foods _acceptable_ for breakfast, "because we can't afford to have an employee in the lavatory all shift."

I narrowed my eyes at him, the only change in my manner I permitted myself. "I hope you've scheduled an appointment with your doctor to have that stick removed, because I don't think we can afford to have an employee scaring away all the customers."

We stared (cough-glared-cough) at each other for three steamboats. Yeah, I counted. When I heard footsteps on the linoleum approaching in our direction, I walked maturely away. Okay, I turned and fled. But only because just _one_ inquisition about my breakfast habits was one too many.

I stuffed the incriminating evidence of my breakfast of eccentricity into my locker, wishing I had a black catsuit to make me feel more ninja-esque and stealthy.

A glance to my watch told me I didn't have the many minutes necessary to drool over Greenheart's words before customers started invading. Which had me sighing dejectedly.

_Later, I will get to you later._

Stealing furtive peeks from side to side, I kissed the back of the white envelope. My lips left a faint and lightly pink smudge, but I didn't care.

"Bella?"

I jumped at the voice, accidentally slamming my locker closed. "Oh. Morning, Alice."

She laughed, eyeing me. "Were you just committing a crime?"

"What? No." Scoffing would be too obvious, right? I mean, come on! Kissing an envelope was _not_ a crime. It was just... different.

"Riiight." Her mouth did this sideways-smirk à la _Bewitched_. "You committing a crime would be ludicrous, of course."

"Exactly. It's not like I'm some speed-ticket acquiring bandit."

Alice's eyes constricted, but the mirth lived on in the oft-changing hazel depths. She opened her mouth to say something, but the bell above the door to the Shop cut her off with its jingling. "Well, that's what I was coming in to tell you anyway."

"Huh?"

"Customers. The hand that feeds us," she pressed a palm to her chest, adding an element to her dramatic words, "yet the bane of our existence."

Amused, I played along with her theatrics. "Oh isn't _that_ the truth."

She held out a hand I could only assume was to me since it was in my general direction and all. Plus, ya know, I _was _the only other person in the room besides herself. "Shall we?"

Was I supposed to take her hand? She'd made it quite clear before that she wasn't interested in me in... _that_ way. So what harm could it do?

I slipped the letter, which I hadn't been able to stick in my locker due to its surprise closing, into my back pocket, hoping it wouldn't get wrinkled in there. After making my way across the shiny tiled floors, I took Alice's proffered hand. It was warm, girly-soft, and I belatedly realized I'd never held hands with someone in a non-oh-hi-I-daydream-about-you-sometimes-even-naughtily way. Well, that and someone other than family.

"You kind of look better than you have in the past couple weeks," Alice commented as we headed toward the front of the store.

Okay then? What was that supposed to mean?

Evidently she saw my look, because she hurried on to say, "Less haggard, I mean! Like... you didn't have to rush to get here and stuff."

Oh. "Yeah," I chuckled a little, "I didn't have to dash here like the President late for a televised speech."

"Well that's good." She smiled over at me. "It's nice to see you're getting adjusted and used to it here and stuff."

_Why do I feel as though this conversation is just chock-full of awkward?_

Umm. "Yeah, it's good."

"So..." she trailed off, and I'd be damned if I was going to pick up the prompt and run with it. She let out this tiny little—all I could think was the word _cute_—sigh before forging ahead. "So I heard through the Bavarian cream that you saw Edward first when you came in."

_What is this? The gossip salon? Jeezing cheese, I saw him like _five _minutes ago._

I nodded slowly. "Yeah." _Stop saying 'yeah', you imbecile! _"Not by choice," I added a bit grouchily.

Alice cleared her throat dexterously. "And what—"

_Enough!_ "Alice, if you have something to say, stop dancing hexagons around it. Please?"

"Well," the hemming and hawing tone seemed as though it struggled to reach my ears, "it just kind of felt like you two had reached an... agreement of sorts. The other day."

I had to give her credit for the genuine discomfort she was shooting off like shotgun shells. I would have pegged (and, to be honest, did) her as the type that pried. And thoroughly enjoyed doing such.

_She still might though. How do I know if she's just awkward about it because she hasn't known me even a month?_

In lieu of it all, I decided to go for vague. "Did it?"

She puffed out a breath in translucent annoyance. The chance to ask more was ripped away from her, though, by customers. Before I'd started working here, I'd have never believed so many people bought so much sporty, hunting, and outdoor stuff. And, it couldn't be overlooked due to its popularity, random crap. Groceries, yeah, I could easily understand why the masses flocked to those. Food was tasty and, ya know, needed and shit.

But softballs and fishing line and soccer balls and hockey sticks and ball caps? What was the draw?

I shook my head, clearing it of the questions to direct a mop-haired little boy to the baseball bat section. I got paid thanks to public's love of all the stuff the Shop sold, I shouldn't query it.

* * *

_I will focus, I will focus, I will focus._

...

_Greenheart, Greenheart, Greenheart._

Yeah, obviously focusing wasn't really working.

As much as I loathed them on most occasions, and barely tolerated them on better ones, I found myself wishing desperately for some customers. For all that they were frustrating or annoying, they were distracting. Far more distracting then sorting refrigerator magnets.

And I needed a distraction. I needed to stop obsessing over the letter burning in my pocket. It was only—wrist-watch check—another two hours until my lunch break.

I groaned, dropping my head and the handful of magnets I was holding into the wrong sorted pile. By the time I'd separated them again and looked up, a genie apparently as awesome as Robin William's version had granted my wish.

A customer had just walked in.

It was a dude, on the far side of middle-aged, and he had on an almost-crossing-over-the-borderline-into-straight-on ridiculous hunting costume. Including a slightly-poofy cap.

And I shall call ye: Elmer.

As in Fudd, not Glue.

If he hadn't looked so serious, I'd have bet the whole can of Reddi-wip in my fridge that Elmer had bought his clothing at a Halloween costume store.

"Excuse me, sir," I began politely, my sales face on, "can I help you with anything?"

Elmer gave me a brushing glance, which lingered in places it shouldn't have. "I don't think what I came in here to be helped with is up your alley, sugar."

The sting of his words didn't settle in right away. Neither did his ability to pronounce his R's. For the duration that it took his rudeness to sink in, I kept my saleswoman expression plastered on. And I wanted to kick myself for it.

By the time his sentence had sunk in, Elmer had spotted someone over my right shoulder, calling out to them and walking away from me without another word. Although, unfortunately, _not_ without another loitering scan of my body.

I stood stationary in the middle of the store, taking stock of my feelings. Without warning, a hand descended on my shoulder, startling me so much I literally flinched. The hand disappeared quickly, but came slowly back as I registered the fact that Sue was standing beside me.

"Dearie?" she questioned quietly, her hand massaging gently, soothingly.

Still confused about my current state, I could only watch as a customer with a cheery gait exited the store. I was distracted from that view by a new one: Alice clipping toward me at a fast, annoyed-seeming pace. Her eyes flicked to Sue, still hovering like a mama bear beside me, then to somewhere behind us before finally landing on me.

"Don't let him bother you, Bella." Her instruction and tone were sweet, underlined with something bitter and harsh. Being able to detect that, I wasn't all that surprised when her eyes narrowed into almost-Chinese-looking slits, her words hissing out, pausing and filtering curses. "He's just a... backwoods idiot who still thinks women are only... good for... things like breeding, cleaning and cooking. And if he wasn't a... loud mouth in touch with a lot of other customers, we'd... ban him from the store."

She gusted out a breath when she'd finished, hands on her hips and fingers curled into fists around her shirt.

"You okay?"

I smiled, somehow knowing the words were for sheer politeness and she knew I was just fine. She nodded definitively in response, her own smile firm and just a little bit... proudly smug?

The realization that Elmer wasn't just a rude, jackass prick to solely me, made me feel a bit better. It was nice to know I hadn't been singled out for such treatment. I felt calmer, felt I had more of a grip on myself and my emotions.

I nodded again to Sue and Alice, telling them I was alright. And that I appreciated the solidarity they'd shown, despite the fact that they'd known me less than a month. There was something in that knowledge that warmed me, but I chose to ignore it (for now), as was probably best.

Normal customers continued to filter in as I hunkered down into the routine I was slowly getting used to. I went about everything with the gradual ease of familiarity, nervous and anxious undertones making my mind work faster than anything else.

My fingers _may _or _may not_ have twitched toward my pocket on several occasions.

Thankfully, during such finger-itching instances, I had customers standing right next to me. It'd have been kind of difficult, even for me and my Greenheart cravings, to simply start ignoring customers for reading a letter pulled out of my jeans.

Separate halves of me brawled with each other over hoping to keep a steady stream of customers, and desperately wishing for a total lull in them.

Ultimately, the devil-half won the match, and the last customer in the store tromped out sullenly (we hadn't had Rudolph's—cause the guy's nose was grossly sunburned—egg-shaped sidewalk chalk). I was all alone. All alone with no customers on site or in sight. All alone with no shoppers and with a brand new letter searing my right buttcheek.

_Burns in that location will be really uncomfortable, ya know..._

Yeah, I didn't waste another second before the preciousness of my letter was no longer hidden, instead bare right in front of my greedy little eyes.

I turned it over carefully, ridiculously fragile as always; as though handling the paper too roughly would result in it crumbing between my very fingers. The smear on the back of the envelope made me smile. A lone finger slid, in the cautious way I only got when excitedly nervous, under the glued and sticky seams. Moving across, minute exposure, the tiniest bit of resistance, giving, opening, anticipation, oh such anticipation.

And then it was done. The flap open, everything and nothing revealed.

My breathing was deeper—heavier, eyes wide in expectation, bottom lip between incisors in a futile effort to diminish my grin.

With everything flooding over me in a way I'd never gotten used to, even after three months of it, I slid the thin—yet so very weighty to me—paper out of its encasement.

Gradually, savorily, I unfolded the parchment.

And read.

_In an effort not to sound like a cocky idiot, I will simply say thank you, Belletrist, for not being fifty years older than I am. Which is just another way to say I'm under thirty as well. You are __not__, allow me to repeat that: NOT stupid. I know stupid people, and you are far from it._

_ But in regards to your point, yes, I have met people I instantly disliked for unapparent reasons. It's confusing when such a thing happens. As for what you should do... well, as much as I know this was not what you wanted to hear when you shared this problem with me, I can't tell you what to do. Situations like that are kind of simply ones you must take in stride and maneuver as you go along. At least, in my opinion, that's what they are. I'm truly sorry I could not be of more help, but I nevertheless hope the matter clears up soon for you. I know from experience that it's not precisely classified as fun when you have to persistently be around someone you dislike._

_ The postman I always use is never impatient, never has an attitudinal problem, and is always right there waiting for me whenever I need to use him. Right about now I'm guessing you're either laughing at me because I am a dweeb, or wondering "Where in the hell can I get a postman like that? Is he out for loan?" In which case I shall have to tell you that I always drop my mail in the funky, square on the body yet rounded on the top, and no-longer-sparkling navy blue mail box outside my apartment._

_ On another note, I hope you never spend precious moments of yourself worrying about the length of your letters to me. With you, Belletrist, I would be happy to get even the simplest "Hi. What's up?" Never worry about the length of your letters. If you do, that is. Though that's not to say you do. I didn't mean to imply that you __do__ worry about the length of your letters. I'd never want to imply anything like that about you without first knowing some sort of semblance of fact, I hope you know._

_ Well, I'd intended to go and white out that bit of rambling mess I sort of spurted all over the page there, but apparently someone (better known as yours truly) used up all my whiteout and forgot to write it down on the grocery list. I'll probably forget again after this. Most likely that right there is the chief reason why I am the world's takes-the-longest, suckiest grocery shopper, and completely dread the act of going grocery shopping. It's too bad the delivery boy who used to deliver my groceries saw me in my place of employment once and promptly told his boss I was __not__ an invalid as I'd let them think I was so I could spout off my list of groceries to them and they'd deliver them to my home._

_ Again with my rambling, spurting mess. I'd apologize, but I'm not really all that sorry so the apology would be false and fake, and I never want to be false or fake with you, dear Belletrist._

_ On yet even another note, because it appears I cannot shut up today, I'm actually rather jealous that you have a brother. I'm an only child, as you must well know by now, yet always wanted a little brother or sister, or older brother or sister even. Although, I think I've found much the same in my current close friendships, so I guess I shouldn't complain. No, I __know_ _I shouldn't. I'm going to shut up now, as I've probably already mentioned this nonsense to you before and this letter is getting scarily close to being way too ridiculously long._

_ It was lovely talking to you, as always, Belletrist._

_Only slightly sad, because I am a greedy SOB like that, that a Fudgsicle won't mail well,_  
Greenheart

The obnoxious clearing of a throat brought me unforgivingly out of my Greenheart daze.

Blinking, I looked up, only to find Edward abruptly and suddenly standing in front of me. A nervous cast of my eyes around granted me the sight of a couple customers dangling bags and walking in the direction of _away_ from the store. Customers I didn't remember _at all_.

Uh oh, not good.

_How long has he been standing there? If those customers had to be rung up, he could have been-... while I was-... and I didn't even-... Oh shit._

_I need to find a cork, cause I am quite possibly _screw_ed._

Face devoid of any expression whatsoever—which in and of itself, if you thought about it, had to be an expression—Edward crooked a single, long index finger at me. Without saying anything or giving me the chance to, he walked away.

And, on top of it all, Grumpy McSmallDick (In actuality, I knew the odds lay in favor of the complete opposite, given the facets of his natural walk. But it would have made sense of his attitudes had it been truth.) didn't even look over his shoulder to check if I was following him. He just _assumed_ I would be. Of course, in point of fact I _would_ be because I was far too curious and intrigued at this point to _not_ follow him, but that was so not the point. He should have been arrogant-less enough to confirm whether or not I was trailing behind him, rather than presuming.

Fucker.

I shadowed him all the way to the metal mess posing as the staircase that led to whatever was above the Shop. I'd never been up there, as I supposed I'd never really had a need to. _Nosiness, unfortunately, is not classified as a need._ And I couldn't sqush down the excitement over finally getting to see the second floor-slash-attic-slash-whatever-the-hell-it-really-was.

No matter what awaited me once I made it there—although, honestly, I wasn't thinking too much about that—I was pretty happy to have my curiosity quenched in regards to the Mysterious Staircase Leading to Mysteries Unknown.

Two or three feet in front of me, Edward didn't hesitate one iota before hopping onto the winding stairs and beginning to climb them. I, on the other hand, _did_. And it wasn't just because his ass and legs were on fine display in the black slacks he wore. Absolutely not. The metal steps looked, ya know, rickety and unsafe and... stuff.

Eyes still focused... elsewhere... as I neared the stairs, I lifted a foot sloppily, aiming for the first step. Of course I missed. Because where was the coordination, hey-let's-help-you-_not _-look-like-an-idiot-in-front-of-people fairy when you needed her? Unconscious instinct had my hands flying out as though imitating wings, catching on the banister. Saving me from having metal tread imprints all over my face.

I righted myself in time for my eyes to find Edward at the top, staring back down at me. His head was cocked to the side, like an animal (_Down girl. Now is _not_ an appropriate time for horny thoughts._) in curiosity.

He ruined it all when he raised an eyebrow at me—probably practiced that jackassery in the mirror in order to perfect it—a smirk not so well camouflaged on his face. Forcing out a deep breath, I stood straight again and scrambled up the steps in hurried annoyance.

Edward held out a hand when I neared the end, pretending to be a gentleman or something, it seemed. _Who was I to know? _I ignored his hand in favor of brushing past him to examine the room. Deliberately, I chose not to hear and/or see his reaction, being sure to stay fixed on taking in my surroundings.

It was... well, not at all what I'd been imagining. _Like that's never happened before._

Basically, just... boxes. Yeah, lots and lots of boxes. Boxes everywhere. Box upon box. Boxes here, boxes there, boxes of every sized square in anywhere. All in all, the entire space seemed to be filled with, yup, that was it: boxes.

Well, boxes and dust bunnies. But those rarely counted unless given names.

Still, apparently, resolutely silent, Edward gestured a single hand to a box on the floor. I touched it with my foot before pressing on it with my own hand, testing its sturdiness. Satisfied, I shrugged and plopped down. My legs crossed out of sheer habit.

Shifting and sinking onto a box across from me, he made nothing more than a slight shuffling sound. Disconcerting and just a little bit creepy? Why yes, Edward.

He bent over until his elbows were on his thighs, aimlessly twirling the leather string tied about his wrist. Studying me. Mouth not moving or expressing anything.

I was coming to find out though that the window to Edward's soul really was in his eyes. No matter what his face was (or wasn't) saying, his eyes always seemed to be speaking.

Or my imagination was really bored and really vivid.

Both were plausibly possible probables.

Ceasing his fiddling, he leaned his entire torso back up, sitting straight once again, his legs spread in a gesture that was supposed to be comfortable, but came off as stern.

_Why is he taking a stern tone with me? I'm sure I have _no_ idea why he'd do such a thing._

Edward sighed overdramatically, at least that was the way it sounded, before licking his lips and parting them.

...What? It wasn't as if there was _that much_ else to look at.

His eyes, which had flicked down to focus on the box visible between his open legs, rose back to mine. I tried to decipher the look in them, but his words made baby food of my attempts.

"I'm just going to come right out and say this: We can't have an employee ignoring potentially paying customers to extensively ponder her electric bill."

Annoyed, insulted, and just the _teeniest_ bit ashamed, I sat up more fully on my box. "It's n—" I cut myself off before I could say anything else. It was _my_ fucking personal life! It was none of his business to know anything about it.

"We're a pretty comfortable, easy workplace, wouldn't you say, Bella?" His voice was too sugary, too sweet.

_Danger, Will Robinson. Danger!_

"Mm-hm...?" I hedged uncertainly. _I don't know where he's going with this, but I don't think I'mma like it._

"And would you like to maintain that easy workplace, Bella?"

Unable to stop myself, I rolled my eyes. "Where are you going with this, Edward?" I voiced my thoughts while simultaneously mocking the way he'd been asking me things.

I watched, swallowing just to swallow, as his jaw tightened, words gritting out. "Answer the question."

My lips pursed, debating; I forced my arms not to cross over my chest. In the end, I raised my eyebrows. "Answer mine."

"We like the lack of pressure and hierarchy and force that we've been able to manage here. But that only remains such because everyone agrees with it and does their job to the fullest extent." He'd avoided my rebuttal, and I had to convince myself to refrain from pouting at that. "Do you see where I'm going here, Bella?"

I could still see his jaw stretched taut, and it looked as though his teeth were biting at the inside of his lip as he stared at me in arrogant expectancy.

"And if I don't?"

"Well then I'll have to simply spell it out more fully for you."

"Please," I offered a palm out, "do so." I knew what he meant. Of course I did. I wasn't an idiot. But... something in me, something other than the always-thinks-before-she-speaks woman I'd thought of myself as, couldn't say no to the temptation of antagonizing him.

Edward's nostrils flared as his tongue poked at the side of his cheek. "If you enjoy the atmosphere of this workplace, as I'm going to assume you do, then you would do well to remember that it is in fact that. A _work_place. Not a place for you to slack off and ignore customers in favor or reading a torn out page from _People_."

"That's not what I was doing!" It aggravated the hell out of me that he could say all that in the same exact tone of voice, whereas as soon as I opened my mouth, affronted sorta-yelling popped out.

It seemed I'd started the beginning of a trend, because his voice started to rise too. "_I _had to assist those customers when you were standing ten feet away from them! I know you've come to realize the employees here are all friends and get along surprisingly well, but—"

I couldn't fight it anymore. My arms crossed over one another across my chest. Classic move of petulance. _Dammit!_ Directly following the motion though, Edward rose quickly from his box, swift strides carrying him over the solid floors and to the staircase.

_Uh-uh, I don't think so, Sparky. You don't get to be the one that stalks off anymore._

Provoked and frustrated (and just a little bit confused as to why he'd walk away when he was in the middle of reprimanding me), I jumped up and followed in his wake. My own hurried march propelled me toward the stairs after him. I could hear the successive clomping of shoe-covered feet on metal as he hustled for the first floor, adding to it with mine as I copied his course.

Regrettably, myself, plus rushing, plus stairs, did _not_ equal a happy outcome.

Three steps from the ground, my shoes and the steps had a vicious fight, one that resulted in me tripping.

My eyes, having previously been concentrating on the stairway flashing by beneath my feet, closed involuntarily, preparing for the meeting with tile on top of concrete that I knew was coming. But I'd have been waiting forever for it, because it never occurred. No, instead, my collision was with another warm someone.

_Fucker and his speedy reflexes._

Edward, _of course_, had caught me. Maybe I'd made some sort of shit-I'm-about-to-fall-down-the-stairs sound, or he'd heard the altercation between my feet and those very stairs. I'd probably never know. But, I was in his arms.

And fuck me was it _awkward_.

One of his hands was between my shoulder blades, the other pretty much directly above my ass. For their part, my own hands clutched at his sides. His chin was a breath above my hair. My face was tucked above the space where his heart most likely beat. Our chests were squished together like ham and cheese on a sandwich.

_This shirt is softer than it looks. And oh _boy_ does it smell good! Well, technically, _he_ smells good because it's, ya know, _his _shirt or whatever._

Our eyes never met, but we separated without words. Each of us turned on the spot and strode away in accidentally, yet gloriously, opposite directions.

* * *

"Um, Bella?" Jasper questioned from behind me.

I didn't look up from the oh-so-tedious task of stacking containers of tennis balls. "Yeah?"

He chuckled quietly, making me curious. "I, uh, think someone wants you."

"Huh?" I finally turned around to look at him, extremely curious now. But his gaze was fixed on the window. No, more correctly, his gaze was fixed on the epitome of class that was my brother, pressing his face up against that very window and waving his arms like a certified idiot. I could see the fading remnants of where he'd breathed on the glass and then written my name in the fog.

Not even sparing a second to explain to Jasper that unfortunately I was related to the ridiculous weirdo, I scurried outside.

"You dipshit!" I yelled at Jake as soon as I was out the door.

"What?" he questioned innocently, his grin betraying his evil intentions.

I tried to hit him, but he dodged. "I'm going to have to clean that now!"

"Whoops-a-daisy," he said with fake wide eyes, shrugging.

I eyed him, suddenly understanding what he was up to. "You jerk-wad!" I attempted to whack him again, but the asshole was surprisingly fast for his size. Not to say that he was chunky or anything, he'd just inherited height from both sides of the family and had a certain fondness for the word _muscle_.

Realizing I wasn't going to be able to smack him, I had to resort to putting my hands on my hips and glaring at him like the older sister I was.

"Do I come to your place of employment and intentionally wreak havoc?" I never had before, but now that I'd mentioned something, it didn't sound like such a bad idea...

He laughed. "'Place of employment'? You're such a dweeb, Baby Bell Cheese."

Had it been anyone else, I probably would have vehemently abhorred that nickname with the passion of a wine connoisseur in Napa Valley. But, as it were, I actually found Jake's preferred one rather sweet and undoubtedly near the top of the most creative I'd ever been given.

Grinning, he reached to ruffle my hair, but I ducked under his arm and took a step back. "Ooh," he mocked, "don't wanna mess up your 'do, right?" He laughed again before it abruptly broke off as his eyes narrowed at me. "You're not trying to snag one like that one," he nodded his head to the right, toward the windows and the store, "are you?"

I fought to keep from blushing at the insinuation, and then had to fight a smile when I didn't feel the familiar heat on my face. "What?"

Slightly exasperated now, Jake expelled a breath. "You know what I mean! That hot guy that was in there standing behind you!"

"You into dudes now, Jake?" I teased. "By all means, have at that one. His name's Jasper. Don't know how well you'll be received though."

"Oh ha ha. Bella made a funny." He rolled his eyes. "How many more of 'em work there?"

"How many more of what?"

"Attractive guys," he mocked in a unexpectedly girly voice.

"As many as work there."

His forehead creased in confusion. "That doesn't make any sense."

"Not my proooblem," I sang.

"It is too your problem because _you_," he pointed a finger at me, "said it!"

"Yes, but _you_," I returned the pointed finger, "didn't understand what I said."

Jake shook his head like a wet dog, and in _my _head I heard the sound cartoon characters made when they did that. "Why are you arguing with me about this?"

"I—"

"Miss Argue-pants."

I rolled my own eyes. "Very original."

"You," again with the finger and slit eyes, this time narrowed in suspicion, "_like_ someone in there, don't you?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. I like them all. Well, almost."

"What?"

"Nothing. Point is, _you_ like-like someone at _your _job."

He froze, and the color from earlier that morning returned to his face. "Do not," he mumbled halfheartedly.

"Lies, all lies!"

"Shut up, Bella!"

"She was preeetty," I teased, hoping to get more than just a confession-by-avoidance.

"I know." He tugged absently at his ear. "She's fucking gorgeous."

"Sssh!" I waved my hands erratically at him. "You can't _say_ that in front of where I _work_!"

Jake looked puzzled. "Say what?"

"The f-bomb."

Now he laughed. "Are you trying to tell me of all the people in there, none of 'em cuss and shit?"

"Jake!" I managed to hit him that time because he was distracted by something over my shoulder inside the store. Unfortunately, my smack apparently didn't do enough damage since he all but ignored that I'd even done it.

"Who's she?"

"Stop cussing! Wait, who's who?" I twisted my head around without actually shifting my body.

Alice stood near the door, head partially titled to the left and obviously (and without chagrin) studying us. Or rather, studying my brother. Who she'd never seen before and who wasn't exactly what one would call ugly.

I started to push on his side, attempting to shove him away. "Alright, time for you to go!"

"Wait wait! She was gorgeous too! Who was she?"

"You like that other scowling girl, leave Alice alone."

He grinned. "Alice?"

I slapped a hand over my mouth, shaking my head back and forth. "Um-nuh."

"Uh huh," he nodded. "You let it slip. Alice, hm? That's nice."

"What's the name of your mechanic honey?"

"This isn't The Beverly Hillbillies, Bella." His eyes were contracted and on me again. "Don't call her my 'honey.'"

Since I was trying to get him to go, I reckoned another eye-roll wasn't the way to go. "Okay okay. Well how about you leave now, and I'll find out the scowling beauty's name when I get home, yeah?"

"Why do I get the feeling you're trying to get rid of me?" he chuckled.

"_Bye_, Jake."

"But I'm gonna have to waaaalk home."

Jeez, my brother was such a whiner. Ever since we were seven and he whined to the people I was still adjusting to viewing as _my_ parents that I'd wet the bed and ruined his favorite sheets. Lies, of course. And the night after that, he'd whined to them that I stole his pillow. Not so much a lie, that one, but still. I firmly believed he'd been born whining about how long he'd had to stay in his mom's stomach and how sticky he was.

"It won't kill you to walk home, Mister Gym-addict."

"Look who's being original now."

"_See you later_, Jake."

He puffed out a breath, twisting away from my pushing hands and taking a step back. "Yeah yeah, fine. See you at home." I smiled, relieved he was leaving as I moved backward to the door. "Tell Alice I say hi!"

I hastened through the door before the girl in question could hear anything. Hopefully. I had no idea if she was one of those freaky people who had Spidey-ears. Like the dude in that Navy submarine movie.

"Who was _that_?" Alice asked the second I'd walked back into the store, her eyes wide.

I was _so_ not in the mood to introduce my brother and his ridiculous behavior. Let alone have a part playing matchmaker to two people who I saw as every single thing but compatible for each other. "No one."

"Bullshit! That was someone, alright!"

I sighed, searching for words she'd find adequate. "Fine, no one _important_. There." _I will not feel guilty for calling my, for all intents and purposes, best friend, someone not important. I will not. Nope. I won't._

She refused to give up and let it go. I shouldn't have been surprised by that. "Come on, Bella! You can tell me. I'm your friiiend," she whined, pouting.

_Why I seem to know so many whiners is beyond me._

And how she, a grown woman, could whine and pout and still look completely adult was also beyond me. Not to mention annoyingly unfair. Luckily for me, Jake didn't possess the same talent. So at least the world wasn't completely screwed up.

"I'm your _friend_, Bella! Please tell me?"

Unable to help myself, I smiled at her. There wasn't really anything quite like realizing you had a new friend. Shit, I sounded like a kindergartner. "Yes, you are my friend. But that doesn't mean I have to tell you who in tarnation that unimportant person was."

And that was _that_.

Alice crossed her arms, staring straight at me.

"What?" I asked because... well, what else was there to say when someone was staring at you?

"Bella."

Why had that sounded like a warning? What in the world did _she_ have to warn _me_ about? Shouldn't _I _have been the one warning her to stay her lovely self away from my crazy-ass brother?

"First off, what is tarnation?"

"A... word?" _Duh._

She looked so much like Edward when she rolled her eyes, I was forced to wonder about them possibly being related. Or maybe she'd just picked it up from him. "Okay, forget the other questions. I have a new one question."

When she didn't go on straightaway, I felt compelled to ask, "Which is...?"

"Was that 'unimportant person,'" she made air quotes with black-tipped fingers, "your boyfriend?"

A situation as this called for the breaking of the rule I'd just busted that same 'unimportant person' for. "Oh my fuck, nooo! Ew!" I seriously did _not_ appreciate her putting even the _hint_ of incest on my menu. And her doing such was through no fault of my own. Certainly not.

Alice grinned now, appearing smug for who-could-tell-what reason. "Good."

* * *

**A/N: This chapter was for my darling favorite POLE, for just being who she is. Hope the long wait didn't end in disappointment, bb. And to all you reading, you each screw in a lightbulb in my lightbulb-less Lowes lights department. (I think that made a lot more sense in my head...)**


End file.
